Abstract:

Manufacturing companies are forced to change at increasingly short intervals due to external market dynamics. In this context the changeability of production systems is a crucial factor of its viability. It describes the ability to undertake structural changes on all levels of a production system initialized by internal or external change drivers under the condition of minimal risk and effort on the one hand and maximal benefit on the other hand. The timely and thorough identification of change drivers is therefore a key success factor for competitive advantage. The paper presents a methodology which supports manufacturing companies to identify internal requirements for change based on external change drivers and helps to asses the benefit of different change scenarios. The presented methodology is part of a publicly funded research project build by an interdisciplinary research consortium in order to investigate the holistic sociotechnical dimensions of the described problem

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