Approach for a cross-company planning and control of processes in the automotive industry

Since the number of product variants increases, vehicle manufacturers focus on their core competencies and reduce their vertical range of manufacture. Thus, complex supplier networks are developing, which are difficult to manage. The utilization of RFID- (Radio Frequency Identification) based data acquisition in combination with cross-company provision of data is able to enhance the transparency of these supplier networks. This article presents an approach for a RFID-based hybrid control architecture to handle the complexity in global supplier networks. This architecture enables a real-time acquisition and provision of data concerning internal and cross-company production and logistics processes. Hence, an adaptive control of these processes depending on the current situation will be possible. © Carl Hanser Verlag, München.