Interactions of production strategies and a production system's performance - an analysis of the influence of production strategies on the final unit costs of lithium-ion batteries

Future-oriented industrial companies are reliant on a continuously expansion and adjustment of their business units to new markets. The profitability of such new business units is therefore often connected to high investments and characterized by a high uncertainty regarding the competitiveness of the produced product and thus of the company's production system. In this context a company's production strategy plays a crucial role because it can be seen as a blueprint for the development of the production system. Hence the modification and combination of these partial-strategies affects the production system at multiple places and in different ways, hereby the overall effect on the performance of the production system can hardly be foreseen. Also the resulting unit costs of a product, produced by this production system can hardly be foreseen and thus also the question if the company would be competitive in a new market. This article analyzes the interactions between different production strategies and their impact on the final unit costs of lithium-ion batteries. The model shows the impact of the analyzed production strategies under different scenarios. Finally first insights about the benefits and disadvantages of the specific partial-strategies can be given, in dependence of the overarching market for electric vehicles.