Identification of reconfigurability enablers and weighting of reconfigurability characteristics based on a case study

Abstract

Today manufacturing systems face a volatile demand with varying customer needs in terms of both volume and product mix ratio. The highly automated dedicated production lines can not fulfil the demand diversity which needs quick adaptation of the production system. Market fluctuations for the next years are unknown and products have shorter lifecycles. In order to specify precisely needs of factories regarding flexibility, this paper presents a methodology using a qualitative analysis and its application to a use case company. The aim is identification of current needs regarding reconfigurability of production systems and following research directions. To do so, decision makers from various fields and decision levels are identified and interviewed individually using a questionnaire. An Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is also applied to identify weights of the six characteristics of reconfigurability: modularity, integrability, customization, convertibility, scalability and diagnosability; based on the experience of the interviewed decision-makers. Indeed, there is no standardized reconfigurability indicator for the assessment of a production system regarding its changeability capacity. Weighting of these characteristics is the first step before computing numerical values for each characteristic based on a mathematical model proposed in literature.