Design of changeable assembly systems - a complexity theory based approach

Since most of today´s industrial products are characterized by high complexity and numerous customer- specific variants, adaptive production system concepts are needed to meet the quickly changing market and customer requirements. At the same time, these production systems have to be highly competitive in terms of cost per unit. Most research activities have been concentrated on manufacturing system design so far. However, in assembly system design there is still a need for methodological support. This paper introduces a methodology that helps to systematically identify and reduce complexity in assembly systems and to redesign them according to the objectives of high changeability and efficiency.