1.2 Production Structures

The aim of achieving an improvement in economic efficiency is not, of course, a new demand but is rather a permanent process which has increasingly challenged manufacturing industry over the last few decades. In the media we only hear about particularly major pushes made in this direction (such as the case of Ignazio Lopez or jobs being exported from Germany). Alongside the improvement in processing technology and the reduction in material and labor costs, this striving for greater efficiency has initially been met by an improvement in production structures and control methods with the aim of improving the passage of an order through production. For this reason new approaches have been developed in recent years which satisfy demands for shorter lead times and greater flexibility, particularly with regard to the increasing number of product variants. Some of these production structures and control methods will be dealt with briefly below.