Global Footprint Design based on genetic algorithms - An Industry 4.0 perspective

A cost-optimized design of a global production network is a complex task. Several optimization tools exist that determine cost-minimized solutions for defined points of times in the future but often do not take into account the development of the network over time. The approach of this article is to analyze a series of different cost-optimized scenarios for several points of time in the future with distinct parameter settings and compare its network structures. The goal of such broad calculations of future scenarios according to the idea of Industry 4.0 is to identify a path in the trade-off between the costs for migrating a network structure into another one and the total landed costs of the regarded series of future network scenarios. The approach will be validated using data from real industrial case studies. (C) 2014 CIRP.