Modern day production has to overcome a polylemma – the gaps between economies of scale and scope as well as between economies of plan and value. Due to shorter product lifecycles and a rising demand of customization, flexibility and adaptability of assembly processes will become key elements for a sustainable success of industrial production in high-wage countries. Self-optimization as presented in this paper has been identified as one major contributor to the enhancement of this flexibility and adaptability. After a short introduction of the historical background, the specifics of the application of self-optimization to assembly are discussed using its meta model. In the end, two application examples are presented to illustrate its industrial deployment.
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