Decision support solutions for factory and network logistics operations

Abstract

The paper examines the relationship of decision levels, performance measures and modelling and decision support approaches through the example of two implemented decision support systems for manufacturing and logistics application fields. Aside from highlighting the relevance of decision support for making industrial networks fit for emerging challenges, the relevance of the two presented EU FP7 projects VFF and ADVANCE to the Factories of the Future vision is shown. A discussion of the two projects outlines future research, with particular focus on challenges that arise from integration across levels of the decision hierarchy, within an organisationally heterogeneous network.

Keywords:

• manufacturing
• logistics
• decision support
• performance indicators

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Work presented in the paper has been supported by the EU FP7 [grant number 257398], ‘ADVANCE – Advanced predictive-analysis-based decision-support engine for logistics’, [No. NMP2 2010-228595], ‘Virtual Factory Framework (VFF)’ and EU Horizon 2020 [grant number 691829] ‘EXCELL – Actions for Excellence in Smart Cyber-Physical Systems applications through exploitation of Big Data in the context of Production Control and Logistics’.