Methods and Limits of Data-Based Decision Support in Production Management

The volatility of today’s markets is constantly rising due to, i.e., the rapid emergence of new and innovative competitors, changing government policies, and unknown market acceptance. This affects both short-term and long-term production management. While short-term production management must deal with a higher time sensitivity of decisions, long-term production management must deal with an increasing level of uncertainty in decisions. Thus, to stay competitive in the future, short-term production management must especially increase the implementation speed of decision, whereas long-term production management focuses on the improvement of decision quality in uncertain environments. Therefore, the Internet of Production (IoP) develops data-based decision support methods for both short-term and long-term production management, which are presented in this chapter. For short-term production management, data-based decision support methods are presented for quality control loops, production planning and control, as well as production system configuration. For long-term production management, methods are presented for factory planning, global supply chain management, and production network planning.