Development of a process model for multi-project planning and control in the factory (MPPS-Fabrik)

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Peter Nyhuis
• Subject Area: Production Systems, Operations Management, Quality Management and Factory Planning
• Term: from 2020 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 439916044

Production companies find themselves in an increasingly volatile, uncertain and turbulent market environment. For this reason, permanent adjustments and changes to factories are already necessary today, and will continue to play an increasingly important role in the future. Almost every change in factories is implemented through projects. As a result, the number, parallelism and heterogeneity of projects in factories will continue to increase. Due to limited resources, dealing with these numerous parallel projects requires an effective selection of the right projects, at the right time and taking into account the right resource allocation. Because of these challenges, conventional project management in factories must be extended to include systematic, efficient and powerful multi-project management. The project context and the mutual influence of the projects on each other must also be taken into account in order to leverage synergy potentials and avoid risks in the project landscape.From the arguments presented it can be concluded that the effectiveness of multi-project management has a decisive influence on the ability of factories to react and adapt, and thus on their competitiveness.So far, there is no specific approach for multi-project management in factories that takes into account the special requirements, processes and framework conditions of factories in order to achieve efficient and effective multi-project management. In particular, existing approaches lack a model that, in the event of contradictory options for action, enables leaders in a factory to position themselves in a directionally secure manner in the conflict of objectives.The core objective of this project is therefore the development of a process model for multi-project planning and control in the factory (MPPS-Fabrik) with a focus on the tasks to be performed and their effects on the project landscape. The purpose of the model is to support leaders of a factory to act confidently in their turbulent environment, to achieve their overriding factory goals in the best possible way, and to make decisions reliably in conflict situations. This should result in greater transparency, traceability and consequently increased acceptance of decisions in connection with multi-project planning and control in factories.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants