When companies design manufacturing systems, they must choose not only machine specifications and vendors, but also the configuration of the machines. It is important for manufacturers to assess the performance of these different system alternatives, particularly with regard to responsiveness. One aspect of responsiveness is convertibility, which is defined as the capability of a system to adjust production functionality, or change from one product to another. Two approaches are proposed: a manufacturing system-based approach which can be used to analyze the convertibility of different system configurations early in the design process, and a product-based approach which requires more detailed information about the products and part families that are being manufactured. Convertibility is defined as an intrinsic performance metric that can be applied to any type of manufacturing system, such as dedicated, flexible, or reconfigurable, so that such systems can be compared. The newly defined metric for system convertibility includes contributions due to machines, their arrangements or configuration, and material handling devices. Configurations and system designs that have higher convertibility exhibit higher costs, but provide many other advantages such as higher productivity, the ability to manufacture multiple part types, and shorter lead times for introducing new products.; Performance analysis must include not only responsiveness issues, but also more traditional factors such as productivity, quality, and cost. Trade-offs frequently exist between these various aspects of performance, so a comprehensive analysis is needed. The analytic hierarchy process is proposed as a methodology that can be adapted for this purpose. The manufacturing system and configuration that a company selects can significantly affect performance, including the ability to respond to changing consumer needs. With increased consumer demands for a wider variety of products in changeable, unpredicted quantities, manufacturing system responsiveness has become increasingly important for industry competitiveness. This research provides a method for selecting preferred manufacturing system configurations, including a quantitative assessment of the capability of different manufacturing systems to respond to changes in product design.
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