Evaluating the scalability of reconfigurable manufacturing systems at the design phase

Audrey Cerqueus and Xavier Delorme

International Journal of Production Research, 2023, vol. 61, issue 23, 8080-8093

Abstract: To face market volatility, reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMS) aim to efficiently and cost-effectively react to changes. We focus on one characteristic of RMS: the scalability (ability to adapt the volume of throughput). In the literature, the only few indicators for scalability are not always formally defined and usually only consider a partial view of scalability. Moreover, most of them are actually more suited for the configuration planning rather than for the design. However, the design of the RMS has a high impact on its scalability. We propose the first combinatorial definition of this problem and a new measure to fully assess the scalability of a system at the design phase. This measure, based on a multi-objective approach, can assess the scalability of single-product manufacturing systems, analysing all configurations that it can implement. We present numerical experiments to compare this indicator with a state-of-the-art scalability indicator and with some classical production line design indicators, and we show that future research should focus on scalability as a specific criterion to optimise during the design of an RMS. In addition, the results obtained allow us to infer some managerial insights on the best levers to use when performing a reconfiguration for scalability purpose.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00207543.2022.2164374 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tprsxx:v:61:y:2023:i:23:p:8080-8093

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/TPRS20

DOI: 10.1080/00207543.2022.2164374

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Production Research is currently edited by Professor A. Dolgui

More articles in International Journal of Production Research from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().