Abstract

The current uncertain and volatile business context is challenging firms worldwide, leading to the need to be responsive at a competitive cost. This trend is so substantial that it even affects industries traditionally competing in rather stable contexts, such as the process industry. Although the process industry includes multiple sectors with different technologies and processes, these share several aspects that make the industry as a whole distinctive to the discrete manufacturing industry. Based on a literature review, this study identifies and describes trends leading the process industry to the need for responsiveness, corresponding solutions to accommodate the need, and related challenges hindering the industrialization and diffusion of solutions in this industry. This study shows that trends, such as the uncertainty and volatility of market requirements, are challenging the process industry to develop reconfigurability solutions across multiple production levels. The development of reconfigurability solutions is hindered by modularity, integrability, co-ordination and collaboration challenges.

摘要

当前不确定和多变的商业环境正在挑战全球的公司，导致需要以具有竞争力的成本做出响应。这种趋势是如此之大，以至于它甚至影响了传统上在相当稳定的环境中竞争的行业，例如流程工业。尽管流程工业包括多个采用不同技术和流程的部门，但这些部门有几个共同点，使得该行业作为一个整体与离散制造业截然不同。基于文献综述，本研究确定并描述了导致过程工业响应性需求的趋势、满足需求的相应解决方案，以及阻碍该行业解决方案工业化和传播的相关挑战。这项研究表明，趋势，例如市场需求的不确定性和波动性，正在挑战过程工业开发跨多个生产级别的可重构解决方案。可重构解决方案的开发受到模块化、可集成性、协调和协作挑战的阻碍。