The often discussed challenge facing today's manufacturing companies can be summarized in just a few words: the rapid fulfillment of customers' requests in agile networks to secure a competitive position in the market. The continual changes occurring nowadays in the markets call for greater changeability respecting reconfigurability on the part of companies in reacting to the persistent pressure of the market.Though changeability represents an unquestionable necessity for forward-looking factories, it is often neglected in planning projects because of the difficulty in justifying the additional costs. This paper describes a method that makes it possible for companies to calculate the relevant costs of change using the technique of scenario planning.

Cutting tool manufacturing by laser technology has developed quickly during the past fifteen years. Compared to conventional machining methods such as grinding or eroding, laser processing does not require any additional elements such as coolant, grinding wheels, erosion wire, discs, etc. If ultrashort laser pulses are used together with optimized laser parameters, heat input into the material can be negligible. Additionally, there are no processing forces or tool wear present during laser manufacturing. For these many reasons, autonomous production of metallic or diamond tools is feasible and highly interesting.

Laser scribing is an indispensable step in the industrial production of Cu(In,Ga)Se 2 thin film solar modules. While cell separation (P1 and P3) is usually achieved using high velocity, low overlap lift-off processes, removal of the absorber layer for generating an electrical back-to-front interconnect (P2) is typically a slow process. In the present study we present an approach for scaling the classical P2 process velocity to an industrially exploitable level. We demonstrated successful P2 scribing at up to 1.7 m/s in a single beam, single pass configuration using a linear focal spot. The presented process is robust against variations in the scribing velocity and focal position, a key point for successful machine integration.

Robust high-throughput laser scribing processes for monolithic interconnection of Cu(In,Ga)Se 2 absorber based thin-film solar cells were developed, validated and assessed for industrial roll-to-roll production of photovoltaic modules. Here we present results of the FP7-project APPOLO.