Production engineering for self-organizing complex systems

Today’s models in production engineering are mainly based on quasi-stationary design assumptions. With increasing dynamics, models reflecting the nonlinear characteristics of production are becoming increasingly relevant. Several approaches have been formulated to design self-organizing systems, leading to good results with regards to the efficiency in which dynamics are mastered by local interaction of a system’s entities. While in self-organization a system’s characteristics emerge bottom-up, effectiveness is designed into a system by an analytical, top-down design approach. The paper discusses how a target oriented analytical design approach can be combined with the concept of self-organization and shows its application and impact on practical examples.