Identifying Complexity Drivers in Discrete Manufacturing and Process Industry

Abstract

Complexity management methods in the field of strategic and operational complexity management are usually conceived for the discrete manufacturing industry and are hardly transferable to the process industry. In this paper, complexity management practices, as well as complexity drivers, in the discrete manufacturing industry and the process industry are identified and collected. Furthermore, an analysis is conducted regarding similarities and differences between the approaches in the two industries. In future research suitable evaluation criteria will be identified and combined in an evaluation model, which may help to show applicable complexity management methods from the discrete manufacturing industry for the process industry. Through a survey of 136 participating companies, the implementation degree of complexity management methods and the impact of complexity drivers within various industries were investigated. Based on these results, the process industry was identified as lagging behind in the field of complexity management. By conducting an interview study with five successful companies identified from the survey's sample, the researchers gained detailed information on the applied methods. Supported by a Delphi study with three companies of the process industry, specific complexity drivers and the main challenges to apply existing complexity management methods in their businesses were identified. To show the difference between the applied methods in the process industry and the discrete manufacturing industry, three cases are described. Two of them are from the process industry. The first one is representative for complexity management in the process industry, comes from a participating company from the Delphi study and is rated as less experienced in this field. On the other hand, the other case, rated as a successful practice case from the survey's sample, shows a high implementation degree of complexity management methods from the discrete manufacturing industry. In the third case, the approach of an automotive supplier with long experience in complexity management and a high implementation degree of complexity management methods is described. First results show, that the challenges in the process industry are mainly resulting from external complexity drivers, like legal and political factors. Whereas internal complexity drivers like product structure as well as the dynamic of technology, are rather influencing the discrete manufacturing industry. Hence methods for gaining transparency on materials and resources seem to be more valuable for companies in the process industry than others.