Knowledge Management in Assembly

Turbulent business environments force enterprises to ever faster answers and adaptions in order to secure their competitive ability. Especially mass customization can be seen as one driver for variable and even smaller number of pieces till lot size 1. Its impacts can be clearly noticed e.g. in assembly where today changeover and set up processes define the daily business. In combination with ever more complex products and the operation of facilities in technological threshold the (re-)use of workers knowledge and experience get a key factor for mutability and responsibility. The article will show starting points for the handling of knowledge in assembly which have been researched within the SFB467-project "Knowledge based management for the versatile assembly" at the University of Stuttgart.