SPECIES—Co-evolution of products, processes and production systems

Manufacturing enterprises are changing the way they behave in the market to face the increasing complexity of the economic, socio-political and technological dynamics. Manufacturing products, processes and production systems result in being challenged by evolving external drivers, including the introduction of new regulations, new materials, technologies, services and communications, the pressure on costs and sustainability. The co-evolution paradigm synthesises the recent scientific and technical approaches proposed by academic and industrial communities dealing with methodologies and tools to support the coordinated evolution (co-evolution) of products, processes and production systems. This paper aims at reviewing and systemising the research carried out in the field of manufacturing co-evolution with a particular focus on production systems. An introductory investigation of various industrial perspectives on the problem of co-evolution is presented, followed by the description of the co-evolution model and the methodology adopted for framing the existing scientific contributions in the proposed model. Then, the core part of the work is presented, consisting in a systemised analysis of the current methodologies dealing with co-evolving product, process and system and a description of problems that remain unsolved, thus motivating future research strategies and roadmaps.