Application Fields of Flexible Production Systems and Their Impact on Agile Product Creation

Abstract

Agility is a central instrument for reacting appropriately to dynamic influences and enabling innovation capability. However, rigid production systems can no longer meet the requirements of agile product development and innovation processes. Flexible production systems like the 'Value Stream Kinematics' provide benefits for producing companies. In this research effort, the ‘Persona-method’ has been used to derive typical individuals who are influenced by a socio-technical system, specifically by a flexible production system. Based on these results holistic use cases of flexible production systems for the product development process and production system development were identified and described as well as discussed in detail. The comparison of agility barriers within industrial companies and the identified specific use cases of a flexible production system shows that agility barriers in product and production system development can be overcome by utilizing a flexible production system.