Abstract
In our globalized economic system, industrial production has to step outside the boundaries of individual enterprises and single production units [1]. The increasing globalisation, new models for growth and Internationalization like Franchising, a high level of responsiveness as well as rising fuel costs and therefore higher logistics costs are significant for the development versus geographically distributed production sites. The purpose of this paper is to examine a best practice company case to identify the critical success factors and guidelines for the design of networks of scalable modular manufacturing systems to support geographically distributed production of mass customized goods. Information was collected through multiple site visits and semi-structured interviews with the company’s key staff of the project, as well as examination of relevant company documentations. With the help of the Axiomatic Design (AD) approach, the information was structured into a multi-level tree of relations between functional requirements (FR) and suitable design parameter (DP). The structured AD based analysis of the design pathway helped to identify a theoretical framework of guidelines for production system designers. An industrial case is taken to illustrate the single design steps and the relative outcomes.