In recent years the situation of production enterprises has been aggravated by the change from a vendors' market to a buyers' market, the globaHsation of competition, a severe market segmentation and rapid progress in product and process technologies. Beside cost and quality, time has taken on an increasingly important role, forcing enterprises to become ever more dynamic and versatile. Therefore, in all areas of production management, novel, effective concepts, procedures and tools have been developed in order to meet these new requirements. But beyond these more technical, organisational...