Symbiosis of Changeable and Virtual Production – The Emperor’s New Clothes or Key Factor for Future Success?

In today’s globalized markets, the continuous pressure to perform at high levels is well perceivable in the companies’ every day business. The concepts of both a changeable and a virtual production, also known as the digital factory, claim to be of great importance when preparing the manufacturing and assembly systems for future challenges. In this paper, the characteristics of both concepts are pointed out. It is analyzed that the digital factory, as it is currently designed and implemented, is suitable for supporting the objective of changeability. However, some drawbacks still exist today, e.g. a bidirectional connection between centralized and decentralized planning and implementation is missing. Identifying the necessities of future research activities, the closer linkage of the concept of changeability and the digital factory in the future is said to be one of the key factors for economic success.