Strategic Planning of Reconfigurable Industrial Systems and Value Chains: A life cycle conceptual model

Abstract

Strategic planning of industrial systems has become increasingly challenging for decision makers at different production levels, due to everal aspects, such as global competition, market uncertainty and volatility, and changing regulations. These evolving aspects often lead to unplanned and high-effort reconfigurations of systems. Additionally, high-paced innovation in industrial technologies and the diffusion of software, data analytics, and big data technologies in industrial systems, while potentially supporting ever smarter, safer, and greener decisions, also challenge decision makers, as often multi-disciplinary knowledge is required to successfully plan and operate increasingly complex systems. Existing literature provides little guidance on how strategic planning of industrial systems is expected to evolve in order to fully exploit advanced industrial technologies to responsively and cost effectively respond to global challenges. To fill this gap, this paper reviews existing literature on industrial systems’ planning and reconfigurability and derivesmulti-sectorial requirements. Based on the findings, a life cycle conceptualmodel for strategic planning of reconfigurable industrial systems and value chains is provided. Moreover, the concepts of hierarchical interfaces, functional interfaces, and reconfigurability bottleneck are introduced and directions for future research are accordingly outlined.