Relationship Between Complexity and Flexibility of Production Structures

Original scientific paper The aim of this paper is to contribute to the development of procedures for the design of effective production structures of an enterprise. In order to do this, the paper focuses on two main aspects. Firstly, the paper considers the possibilities of making production structures more manageable by means of lowering the degree of complexity of those structures. Secondly, the focus is on ways of enabling those structures to adapt to changes in the environment, i.e. on flexibility. Complexity of a production structure is a characteristic defined by the number of structural elements and their interdependence. Flexibility of production structures is observed through three components: technological component, capacity component and flexibility of flows.