Integrative standardisation — Theoretical model and empirical investigation of German toolmaking firms

Maximising economies of scale in individualised production is a vital issue for producing companies in high wage countries. A decisive enabler for this is the management of product and process complexity by systematic standardisation. Due to the strong and far-reaching impact of complexity on the value added chain, its management requires an integrative consideration of the entire product and production system. The following paper introduces a methodology facing this challenge. The core element of this methodology is an integrative and complexity-focused assessment model. This assessment model has been validated experimentally by analysing key company data from more than 50 German toolmaking firms. Findings of this empirical investigation are presented in this paper.