The development and analysis of capacity-driven system design strategies.

摘要

This dissertation defines research investigating the nature of manufacturing systems design as it relates to capacity. This work has been motivated by previous research in product design that indicates that explicit consideration of process capacity constraints during the design phase can lead to improvements in overall system performance as measured by throughput capability. Because virtually every system's performance is evaluated using capacity either explicitly or implicitly, and because profitability and competitiveness are directly related to this important metric, it is appropriate to further focus on capacity driven design strategies through consideration of additional design domains. This dissertation considers four design domains in addition to product design; process design, material handling system design, plant layout design, and distribution logistics system design. In each of these domains, the impact of explicit consideration of capacity during design is investigated. Each domain is supported by experimentation leading to the development of general capacity-driven design guidelines. To ensure practicality of these general guidelines, comprehensive industry case studies are also utilized in each domain. Research contributions include the first known look at capacity-driven design methodologies for four new domains using the common metric of total systems capacity.