A New Approach to Consider Influencing Factors in the Design of Global Production Networks

Abstract

Uncoordinated decisions that have a long-term impact on the production network lead to inefficient structures and limit the ability to change. However, the ability to change is a basic prerequisite for future decisions. At the same time, the world is becoming more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambivalent. To counteract this, external and internal influencing factors must be considered in the early stages of planning global production networks (GPN). The design of GPN is on the one hand associated with a large number of degrees of freedom and on the other hand with a large number of influencing factors. Influencing factors can thereby be known and predictable, but also unknown and unpredictable. To make production networks capable to change in the long term, influencing factors and their effect on the network design must be considered. The combination of influencing factors with consideration of uncertainty still needs further research in the context of network design. Thus, this article aims to develop a method for network design that does not only take external and internal influences into account at an early stage but also leads to a network configuration that considers these influences and increases resilience. To achieve this, the influencing factors should first be represented in scenarios using the receptor theory. Subsequently, the scenarios can be incorporated into the optimization of the network configuration by choosing a solution from a predefined solution space. The process of solution selection and testing can be supported by a digital twin. The result is an initial concept that merges these different steps into a continuous process that can be used to design adaptable GPN in the future.