Economic dimensioning of indirect areas

Design of indirect areas for more efficiency

Adjustment of indirect areas for more efficiency

The turbulence and dynamics of the markets force companies to continuously and fully adjust their sales and production programs. As a result, the resulting production programs are far more complex and characterized by multivariate influences. The effect of multivariate influences is particularly noticeable in the indirect areas, since activity costs in indirect areas do not necessarily increase proportionally with the production quantity, but are rather shaped by further influences, such as the batch size or the variety of variants. Classical measures counter these turbulences mainly with the demand for high flexibility and adaptability, which is essentially only possible by oversizing and keeping space reserves for the case of expansion. It should be noted that oversizing leads to uneconomical overcapacity and increased unit costs. The options for designing a factory capable of change have in common that a minimum factory dimensioning must first be found that corresponds to the forecast of the expected production program at the time of planning. Within the framework of holistic factory planning, indirect areas such as work preparation, quality control or maintenance are increasingly included. Indirect areas are becoming increasingly important for overall productivity in companies. Due to an increase in capital-intensive technologies and manufacturing processes, as well as the steady shift from direct activities to indirect areas, the situation is becoming more acute. While productivity development in the direct areas can often only be realized with small increases, enormous potentials can be exploited in the indirect areas. As a result, it is precisely the indirect areas that are expected to have the greatest potential for increasing efficiency in the future.