Challenges for handling flexibility in the change management process of manufacturing systems

The success of a company invariably depends more and more on the ability of a company to recognize changes in its environment at an early stage and to consider these changes timely in its competitive behaviour. Consequently, flexibility marks the ability of a company to master complex environmental situations in order to boost its chances to survive and safeguard its long-term success. In this context, a consistent systematic for the measurement and evaluation of flexibility still remains an open problem. This article picks up this difficulty and delivers a contribution for a practical approach to evaluate flexibility of production systems within the scope of change management.