Maintenance Concepts in the Fractal Factory

The increasing dynamics of today's markets imposes great challenges upon present industrial companies. Organisational and process structures must become more flexible, and the reaction times must be shortened. The realisation of leaner structures and the Japanese KAIZEN philosophy are not enough. Successful companies are focusing on the rapid conversion of their customers' needs into an effective and flexibly organized value creation process through motivated employees. The following paper presents the concepts of the "Fractal Factory" and "decentralised equipment and process responsibility" (DAPV) as developed out by the Fraunhofer Institute IPA in Stuttgart, Germany. They have already been successfully implemented in many industrial projects.