Versatile large-scale production requires careful planning, a must have amongst today’s constantly increasing product individualization, designed to answer customer demands. Also required: continual optimization of existing processes. This is true for white goods and supplier components, for consumer goods and motor vehicles. The auto industry is a good example: due to the extreme growth in product ranges, and the variations available within each model series, detailed production planning and exacting implementation have become a critical market challenge. However, continual process optimization ensures that every production plan is changed several times over. All manufacturers know that the final production process will differ from the original plan, to a greater or lesser degree. In order to test, evaluate, and finally, reach the goals set in terms of quality, time required, and cost-effectiveness, the plan must be constantly compared to the reality. Any changes to the production process and planning then take place over the course of an iterative process requiring the agreement of numerous participants.

The problem today is that the departments involved in changing the process cannot fall back on generally acknowledged methods, which leads to coordination problems further down the line. This results in delays in the documentation process, not to mention delays in adapting the plan and/or delays implementing the plan on the shop floor. There is a definite need to work together, in particular in order to

The project group Digital Manufacturing was founded in 2010 and is a part of ProSTEP iViP e.V. It has been working on Manufacturing Change Management since 2013. Industry participants include Daimler, Dassault Systèmes, PDTec, PROSTEP, Siemens PLM Software, and ZF Friedrichshafen. FH Augsburg, the Fraunhofer IPK Berlin, and the TU Dortmund are involved in a research capacity.

This white paper has two goals:

1. With insights gained from interviews on general practical needs, change processes are divided into individual, formalized sub-processes. These sub-processes are to build the basis of a recommendation for a Manufacturing Change Management reference process.
2. The white paper describes the current state of processes within Manufacturing Change Management, the role of various participants within these processes, and the problems that arise from inadequate synchronization of production and planning due to documents that are not updated as frequently as is required.

The project group has also begun to define and describe implementation scenarios as typically seen in the change processes examined. As in many other projects coordinated by the ProSTEP iViP Association, the final goal of this project is to create a recommendation that describes the exact procedure and detailed processes which, according to the project participants, have been proven to be meaningful and helpful for all companies.