Complexity Management in Production Systems: Approach for Supporting Problem Solving Through Holistic Structural Consideration

Both external and internal influences affect the way production systems are planned and operated. Long-standing trends combined with topics such as digitization and artificial intelligence are increasing the complexity of tackling problems in production systems. Along with this, there is the ever increasing risk of planning errors and the loss of long-term competitiveness. This paper presents an innovative approach that supports problem-solving processes in the planning and operation of production systems. For this purpose, qualitative structural modeling and analysis of problem situations are applied. At its core, the article focuses on a framework, which forms the basis for the modeling of problem situations, their analysis and the organizational and technical integration of the method. Furthermore, with the concept of building block based domain-relation models, a possibility is presented with which the structure of problem situations can be modeled and analyzed.