Industry is looking for new product and production strategies to remain competitive in a dynamic and less predictable market. The need for rapid change processes in the product itself, its production and procurement is leading more and more companies to question IT paradigms that have been used for years. Today, better methods and technologies are available that ensure flexible production planning and high product quality even in the face of ever-increasing requirements from customers, society, and legislators.
 
This article describes the advantages of a digital production planning that starts in product development. The authors have been researching this issue at the Werner-von-Siemens Centre for Industry and Science for some time. One result are new PLM applications that enable the simultaneous development of BOMs, work plans and factory layouts and to validate them against each other. The synchronized view of product structure, manufacturing processes and production system simplifies consistency considerations and helps companies to react quickly and effectively to changes even shortly before start of production (SOP).

ProductData Journal 1, September 2022