Preparation of Papers for IFAC Conferences & Symposia: Method for the identification of point in time for changes in production networks

By focusing on core competencies and the utilization of international location advantages such as access to low-wage labor and local sales markets, global production networks are becoming increasingly complex. Additionally, turbulent times with great uncertainty forces globally acting enterprises to adapt their production networks. Therefore, it is crucial to determine the right point in time for change and also to identify the beneficial production network alternatives. In other words, globally acting enterprises have to answer the two questions of what to change and when to change. The presented method describes an approach for the strategic planning of global changeable production networks, based on future scenarios and a multi-objective optimization to identify the most favorable network configuration during the planning horizon. The multi-objective optimization is modeled as a mixed-integer MODM problem (multiobjective decision making) including seven criteria i.e. costs, delivery time, quality, flexibility, customer proximity, coordination and plant qualification.