FROM FLEXIBILITY ATTRIBUTE VIEWPOINT TO CONSTRUCT A MEASUREMENT FRAMEWORK FOR MANUFACTURING FLEXIBILITY

摘要

The attribute approach for measuring manufacturing flexibility has been proposed in the literature. At least 10 types of flexibility attributes have been defined, and they are divided into three groups, namely the physical, decision and managerial attributes. The physical attribute includes efficiency, versatility, redundancy, variety, mobility and autonomy. The decision attribute includes the assignment of probability of an occurrence to the output tasks and weights of importance of the tasks. While the managerial attribute includes control and learning. This description of attributes helps to promote a better understanding of the concept of flexibility of a manufacturing system, but it is necessary for the next step of research to establish mathematical models. The purpose of this research is to propose models for measuring manufacturing flexibility attributes. The learning and control attributes are irrelevant to the measurement models in the present research and hence will not be included. The other attributes will be developed with their respective mathematical models.