بهبود مستمر و برنامه ریزی مشارکتی کارخانه توسط سیستم های کامپیوتری

Turbulent influencing factors — based on market requirements and technological demands — lead to a permanent change and improvement in the factory processes, manufacturing systems and layouts. New investigations in manufacturing show that the application of new machining processes and tools require a systematic and stepwise change of the layout and the organisation in order to activate the economic potentials. It is evident that continuous improvement and optimisation with the perspective to medium-term objectives can be realised by means of new methods and new computerised systems for factory planning. Digital models and the technology of virtual reality allow the continuous planning of changes in factories. This paper includes results of the planning of future manufacturing systems and the systematics of continuous planning based on digital modelling and virtual manufacturing.

According to the American scientist H. Mintzberg [I], turbulent influencing factors have been a major challenge and cause for problems in manufacturing enterprises since the beginning of industrialisation. Even if these statements are true, and turbulence seems to be nothing new for manufacturing, the current high speed of innovation in manufacturing technologies forces enterprises once more to search for new principles, new mechanisms and new tools to enable a faster adaptation of the performance of today's manufacturing systems to the changed market needs. Nearly all influencing factors of the factories' performance are dynamic factors. Therefore, the thesis may be that a factory never operates at its highest level of economy and performance. Consequently, the structure of the factories, their resources and processes have to be adapted and continuously improved. The factory development has to be oriented to strategic objectives taking into account a permanent change and optimisation in order to ensure at any time operation on the highest possible economic level. This paper, inspired by several investigations in the German manufacturing industry and by developments of new tools and systems for factory planning, illustrates the increasing demand for continuos improvement and so-called participative planning methods using computerised technologies for digital and virtual manufacturing with a holistic approach.

This paper presents a new paradigm for integration of work and factory planning as a holistic approach to faster adaptation and long-term objective orientation in planning processes for the manufacturing development. Taking into account the turbulent influencing factors and the requirements for permanent optimisation of factories, new methodologies are needed. The digital and the virtual manufacturing seem to be realisable by using multi-scaling (up and down) data and process models. Permanent and participative factory planning on all levels reduces the planning time and costs. A systematic model of the planning tasks and the integration of new computerised techniques up to the high end of virtual reality can be used to realise a dynamic optimisation of production networks and specific processes.