Network-based factory planning for small and medium-sized enterprises
研究中小企业对工厂规划网络合作的抵触情绪，通过专家调研验证网络合作能否帮助企业应对生产系统改造挑战，并推导出促进网络合作的模型。
Many industrial sectors are currently being challenged with regard to the flexibility and adaptability of their production and control processes, which can, inter alia, be attributed to macroeconomic trends such as digitisation. These trends not only shorten product lifecycles but also lead to a greater need for redesign and transformation of production systems within factories. Since this field of factory planning tends to play a subordinate role in SMEs anyway, the above-mentioned factors impede an efficient execution of corresponding projects even more. While large companies are more likely to have a factory planning department, SMEs often do not have sufficient resources to meet the aforementioned challenges through independent factory planning projects. Although network-based structures could be a realistic and practical way to meet the challenges of factory planning as they generally provide possibilities for resource and risk sharing, SMEs often manifest resentments towards network collaborations. This paper aims to validate these resentments. For this purpose, a profound expert study explores whether network cooperations could overcome companies’ challenges. It derives implications towards a model that enables network cooperations in factory planning.