Time to be responsive in the process industry: a literature-based analysis of trends of change, solutions and challenges

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.

Keywords:

• Process industry
• responsiveness
• flexibility
• reconfigurability
• agility
• lean management

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alessia Napoleone

Alessia Napoleone is a post-doc researcher at Aalborg University in Denmark. She graduated in Management Engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, and received her PhD at the same university with a thesis about the core characteristics of Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems and their managerial implications. Her current research interests lies in the design and operations of Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems. She is also investigating how Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems can be supported by digital and smart technologies.

Alessandro Pozzetti

Alessandro Pozzetti is a Full Professor of Operations Management at Politecnico di Milano, Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering. At Politecnico di Milano he was the Dean of the School of Systems Engineering and the Head of the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering. He has published five books on operations management and design of production systems. His research publications have appeared in a lot of conference proceedings and international journals, including International Journal of Production Research, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Production Planning & Control, International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, International Journal of Production Economics.

Marco Macchi

Marco Macchi is Full Professor at the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano. His teaching and research activities regard industrial technologies, asset lifecycle management, operations and maintenance management, smart manufacturing. Serving the scientific community, he is currently Chair of the technical committee IFAC TC 5.1 Manufacturing Plant Control; he is Member of the IFIP WG 5.7 Advances in Production Management Systems and the IFAC TC 5.3 Integration and Interoperability of Enterprise Systems (I2ES); he is co-leader of the Special Interest Group (SIG) on ‘Product and Asset Lifecycle Management’ at the IFIP TC5 WG 5.7 Advances in Production Management Systems. Concerning his role in scientific journals, he is Member of the International Editorial Board of Production Planning & Control: the Management of Operations, and he is Associate Editor of the Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing.

Rasmus Andersen

Rasmus Andersen (M.Sc.) is since 2019 a Ph.D. fellow at the Department of Materials and Production, Aalborg University in Denmark. He earned a M.Sc. degree at Aalborg University in operations and supply chain management in 2018. His research area is platform-based product design and complexity management within the process industry. Rasmus’ work is done in collaboration with an industrial partner manufacturing consumer chemicals.