Today, global production networks (this means the nexus of inter-connected material and information flows through which products and services are manufactured, assembled and distributed) are confronted with:

- sudden and unpredictable large-scale changes of important parameters, which occur more frequently.
- event propagation in networks with high degree of interconnectivity, which leads to unforeseen fluctuations.
- non-equilibrium states, which increasingly characterize daily business.

These multi-scale changes deeply influence logistic target achievement and call for robust planning and control strategies. 

Therefore, understanding the cause and effects of multi-scale changes in production networks is of major interest. New methodological approaches from different science disciplines are promising to contribute to a new-level comprehension of network processes. 

Unconventional methods from biology, perturbation ecology, or auditory display are gaining increasing importance, as they are confronted with similar challenges. Advancements from the classical disciplines such as mathematics, physics and engineering are of continuing importance.

Conference Topics

- effects of fluctuations on logistics and production networks
- robust production planning and control
- local information versus global information in networks
- robust capacity planning
- influence of network architectures on logistics target achievement
- robust factory design
- data mining/ advanced statistical methods in logistics and production
- logistics and production network analysis by interdisciplinary approaches (for example auditory display, bio-inspired) and advanced classical approaches
- robustness trade-offs
- global production in non-equilibrium states