The factory of the future: New structures and methods to enable transformable production

The article shows on the one hand new structural concepts for a transformable productions structure on the micro-scale (inside the company) and on the macro-scale outside of the company. On the micro-scale concepts as the fractal company with its elements of goal orientation, self organisation and self optimisation shows a significant potential to enlarge adaptability of the company. On the macro-scale the concept of virtual enterprises shows a significant rise the market flexibility. Furthermore the arcticle shows the need for new methods to plan and optimise factories in the future. To further reduce planning g time the integration of process modelling, simulation and evaluation in an integrated tools seems necessary. In order to deal with the higher degree of self organisation teambased planning tools seem necessary to support the planning process. In the case the article shows a prototyp system to support teambased layout planning. Finally an integrated performance measurement is required.