Due to the increasing value of customized solutions, the entrepreneurial procedures from the customer order to the distribution getting more dynamic and complex. A way to handle this issue is an interdisciplinary value chain comprising corporations with different core competences. This type of overarching cooperation requires functional communication as driving source for every component of the production network. For this purpose, explorative research is needed on potential communication barriers in the exisiting organisational structures. We propose a descriptive model for company-wide communication including suppliers, distributors and customers of a value chain. After identifying the partners of a production network, we lowered the degree of detail from the structure of an organization to general communications methods in corporations. To analyse the whole system with its parameters on the different scales, we generalised it by way of so-called “communication paths”. These communication paths contain all information of communication between employees; they give a starting point for the evaluation of barriers and success factors of communication. The model is to uncover obstacles in communication structures in companies and production networks. Derivative communication designs will help to remove existing barriers and avoid the emergence of new ones, as well as to increase success factors. By enhancing the communication, operational processes can become more economical not just for enterprises, but for complete value chains. The research targets at a tool for architects, factory planners and entrepreneurs supporting the communication analysis of existing production network. The tool will show barriers within the value-chain-system and make proposals for overcoming them. The development of the descriptive model will be carried out within the DFG-funded research project InterKom (“Communication Design in Multi-Company Production Networks”).