Reconfigurability consideration design of components and manufacturing systems

A manufacturing system should be able to produce a variety of components at a low cost and in a short period of time. In this paper, manufacturing system reconfigurability in agile manufacturing is discussed. The reconfiguration of a manufacturing system is analysed based on the relationship of component routes, material handling costs, reconfiguration cost, and so on. Components with similar routes are selected in an early design stage in order to minimise the number of machines to be relocated. The variety of resources required is reduced by a proper selection of components and manufacturing processes for system reconfiguration. An algorithm for selection of components and manufacturing resources is developed.