Evolvable Production Systems: : What does the future hold?

Abstract: The world is everchanging and alongside the world economy and present topics in society such as climatechange, production is affected. Instead of massproduction we are now seeing more tendencies towards masscustomization. Customers are increasingly demanding custom-made products and in order to meet the challenges of the future we are going to see more and more flexible solutions of production. Research and development is continuously being done however there are no guaranties that they will work in the industry or even be profitable to adopt. Currently there is a group of researchers lead by Professor Mauro Onori at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm who are testing and developing a new paradigm of production called Evolvable Production System, EPS. In this report we will investigate what the future for EPS holds and whether or not an “ideal” product for this paradigm can be identified. We start by describing EPS, what it is and how it works. After that we explore what the necessary steps are, towards a breakthrough on the market and in the future generally. We exemplify advantages and drawbacks for EPS. We also look at the pharmaceutical industry, foremost at manufacturing of pharmaceutical pills, and conclude whether or not it would be profitable to convert. Lastly we analyse all of the above and try to identify what we find to be an “ideal” product for EPS. The “ideal” product we have identified is fairly small (for examplea control unit for a truck), made in many different variations and is not mass-­produced. We are convinced EPS is well suited to live up to future demands on production systems, however it will take time and work to generate acceptance and understanding for this relatively new paradigm.