Changeability through flexible and integrated product design and assembly planning

Companies are facing complex and frequent changes in their environment. Predictions about their future situations cannot be accurate. The R&D organization has to be able to introduce changes, to implement them rapidly and to handle unexpected occurrences [11]. In addition to the important need for innovation, the organization is expected to observe schedule and cost restrictions. However, the high degree of complexity and the dynamic nature of the development process steps involved, not to mention the difficulty of accurately defining them, prevented effective and agile process management. This paper describes an innovative method for the flexible planning and implementation of highly complex dynamic development processes which has already proved successful in pilot projects.