From the Customer's Inquiry to the Production Network with Partners having equal Rights-the Activity of the Determination of the Production Process

摘要

The research of non-hierarchical production networks at Chemnitz University of Technology deals with a special kind of production networks. They base on concrete customers' orders and so they are temporally limited. Furthermore, those networks are characterized by aflat hierarchy, which means that there is no focal network participant and all potential network participants within a pool of resources have equal rights. The management system for the networks - the Extended Value Chain Management (EVCM) - must ensure the selection of the network participants and thus the formation of the production network according to this character. A special problem in this context is the preparation of the customer's inquiries and the determination of the technological process for the production network. The paper introduces an approach for this process including the product development, process and quality planning whereby the non-hierarchical character is considered. The necessary activities starting with an inquiry up to the plans for the selection of the participants of the actual manufacturing process are described. The developed approach represents an important part of the management system for non-hierarchical production networks. The definition of the activities to determine the technological production process forms the basis of a support within an IT-infrastructure.