Adaptivity and interoperability of production equipment present extensive difficulties in business practice today, particularly if production systems are modified.

Production systems are adapted continually as products change, as capacities have to be re-adjusted owing to varying demands or as more efficient manufacturing technologies are applied. In practice modifications in production plants do not only result in equipment being shifted physically within a plant. Rather, they cause adjustments in the software of controlling machinery and equipment, for example programmable logic controller (PLC), as well as in the information technology (IT) which superposes the direct facility control, monitors automated plants or plans and controls the allocation of equipment. CIRP, the international organization of production scientists, considers this capability to undergo permanent change to be the strategic competitive advantage of plants and production systems in the future.