Methodical decision support for dynamic allocation planning of product variants in global manufacturing networks

由于客户需求的地理转移而增加的产品多样性和同时增加的竞争压力给制造企业在规划其全球制造网络时带来了挑战。因此，所提出的研究建议旨在支持全球制造网络中的产品多样性分配决策，同时在不断变化的生产环境中最佳地利用生产结构和能力。由于产品多样性需求的波动，必须同时做出关于产品变体分配到生产阶段和地点的决策以及制造网络中的配置策略决策。只有这样，才能恰当地考虑产品变型生产需求与生产结构和生产能力之间的相互依赖关系。本提案提出的主要挑战是，在考虑多个时间段内多个不断变化的产品变型、生产阶段和地点时，如何科普计划问题的复杂性。这些变化与制造网络规划中的长期且不可逆的决策形成鲜明对比，需要分别考虑制造网络配置的动态可重构性和柔性度量。当需求变化的产品变化或生产环境的变化不能补偿的柔性措施了，制造网络重构变得至关重要。网络结构和能力的限制约束的透明度，如生产现场的现有或潜在的工作人员，是重要的重构决策。基于一个考虑柔性措施和动态可重构性的全球制造网络优化模型，提出了一种方法，以确保解决方案的保证，使用后优化方法。这些方法允许分析关于进一步优化潜力的所识别的最优解，并且示出网络配置策略对偏离需求趋势的灵活性。

Increasing product variety due to a geographical shift of customer demand and simultaneously increasing competitive pressure pose challenges for manufacturing companies when planning their global manufacturing networks.Therefore, the presented research proposal aims at supporting product variant allocation decisions in global manufacturing networks while optimally utilizing production structures and capacities in constantly changing production environments.Due to volatile product variant demand, decisions regarding product variant allocation to production stages and sites and configuration strategy decisions in manufacturing networks have to be made simultaneously. Only in this way, interdependencies between product variant production requirements and production structures and capacities can be considered appropriately.The main challenge addressed by this proposal is to cope with planning problem complexity when considering multiple and ever-changing product variants, production stages, and sites over multiple time periods. These changes contrast long-term and often irreversible decisions when planning manufacturing networks.Both, dynamic reconfigurability and flexibility measures of manufacturing network configurations need to be considered respectively. When demand changes for product variants or changes in the production environment cannot be compensated by flexibility measures any more, manufacturing network reconfiguration becomes essential. Transparency of restricting constrains for network structures and capacities, such as existing or potential staff at production sites, is significant for reconfiguration decisions. Based on an optimization model for global manufacturing networks considering flexibility measures and dynamic reconfigurability, an approach proposed to ensure the assurance of the solution found using post optimization methods. These methods allow for analysing the identified optimal solutions regarding further optimization potential and illustrating flexibility of the network configuration strategies to deviating demand trends.