Standardization programs in the industrial plant business: Best practices and lessons learned

Abstract

Organizations in the industrial plant business are facing an increasing competition and a rising complexity of the plants. Common approaches to increase the profitability of engineering organizations in this business are standardization programs. The underlying methodology of modularization and standardization is already successfully used the product business. In the industrial plant business however standardization programs are only slowly gaining ground, mainly due to the high customer specificity and small number of plants produced in this business. Nevertheless researchers agree that standardization programs have great potential. In this contribution, six standardization programs of a German engineering organization were analyzed in case studies. Based on these programs best practices and lessons learned are identified. The knowledge of these success factors as well as examples how these factors can be practically implemented will support engineering organizations to conduct their standardization programs more efficiently.