Vision of Integrative Production Technology

The Cluster of Excellence “Integrative Production Technology for High Wage Countries” sees his primary mission in the resolution of the so-called polylemma of production.

Competition between producers in highwage and low-wage countries is typically carried out in two dimensions: economy of planning and economy of production .

In terms of production economy, lowwage countries focus solely on exploiting volume effects in production (economies of scale); high-wage countries position themselves in-between scale and scope, i.e. satisfying customers‘ specific product desires and requirements, while simultaneously assuring minimum production quantities.

In the second dimension, the planning domain, manufacturers in high-wage countries attempt to optimise their processes more and more, using demanding, capital-intensive planning methods and tools as well as technologically superior production systems, while low-wage countries find their solutions in simple, robust and value stream oriented process chains.

Better positioning within the two dichotomies of scale/scope and planningorientation/ value-orientation is no longer enough to obtain a sustainable competition advantage for production locations in high-wage countries. Research must instead aim to resolve these dichotomies as far as possible. Ways must be found to increase product variability while at the same time manufacturing at massproduction costs. This requires productadapted, value-optimised process chains, whose profitability is not endangered by excessive planning efforts.

Tomorrow‘s production technology therefore needs a fundamentally new understanding of these basic relationships – a theory of production science.

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