Complexity-based modeling of reconfigurable collaborations in production industry

Engaging in collaborations and managing relationships within the same have become a major concern for managers in industrial companies. However, the direct transfers of current management approaches to complex networked enterprises working in highly dynamic environments fail regularly, as they lack problem-oriented interdisciplinary inferences. The cooperative EU funded project, CCU-PLEXITY, Collaborations as Complex Systems - shifts from existing approaches to collaboration. It targets the interdisciplinary development of a Generic Model of Complexity as the basis for a problem-to-system match framework for collaborative systems in the production industry. The paper explains the scientific approach to this model and its expected applicability in production industry. (C) 2008 CIRP.