Interchangeable product designs for the increase of capacity flexibility in production systems

In the current competitive market, production companies are driven by significant price pressure, as well as high fluctuation in demand. They are faced with the challenge of producing products cost-effectively. Serial and variant manufacturers especially strive for high capacity utilization to prevent overcapacity and to reduce fixed costs in production. Applying current approaches, companies are able to react on market turbulences by adapting the production system within the limits of a defined flexibility corridor. However, these approaches do not eliminate the existence of overcapacity or bottlenecks. An alternative approach for short and medium term adjustments in the given production system has to be developed. In this article, an approach to increase the capacity flexibility in production systems based on the idea of interchangeable product designs is described. The objective is the economical use of overcapacity and efficient reaction to bottlenecks. Based on extensive scientific studies, the influence on the capacity flexibility of production systems by variation of product designs with the same product function, but different manufacturing process times and variable costs, is presented.