Design and Planning of Decentralised Production Networks Under High Product Variety Demand

In today's era of customer-driven markets, manufacturers throughout the globe realize that the efficient collaboration with their supply chain partners is amongst the most crucial factors for improved profits. The necessity to coordinate the activities of the independent partners and to align their objectives towards a common goal is evident. This research work, presents a methodology for the identification of efficient supply chain schemes in decentralised and centralised manufacturing environments. The methodology allows the generation of feasible alternative production and transportation schemes, using exhaustive and intelligent search methods. The schemes are evaluated against multiple user-defined criteria such as cost, time, environmental impact and quality. The derived alternatives can be used for the planning and coordination of geographically dispersed facilities that carry out the production of highly customized products. The approach is implemented to a tool and is applied on a automotive case study.