Profiling as a means of implementing volume-oriented changeability in the context of strategic production management

Operational changeability has proven itself as a successful concept at shop floor level. However, it neglects the major fixed costs aspect emerging from supporting functional areas (e.g. engineering, maintenance) and resulting in high variance of unit costs when production output fluctuates. This paper extends the changeability approach to strategic plant level. Conflicting goals are identified and underlying contradictions are revealed. These are aggregated to four dimensions for profiling strategic changeability. The profiling enables decision makers obtaining characteristic profiles increasing transparency of intradimensional and interdimensional discrepancies. Resolving these results in balanced configurations in terms of volume-oriented changeability.