Strategic development of flexible manufacturing facilities

Purpose This article addresses the lack of formal design guidance that supports flexibility within the architectural and engineered systems of manufacturing facilities through the development of a taxonomy and associated terminology. Design/methodology/approach This research performed a comparative analysis of 15 manufacturing facilities located both within the United States (73 percent of cases) and internationally (27 percent of cases). These case studies provided details on how and where flexibility was incorporated into the design of a manufacturing facility. Specific consideration was given to the primary design features that enabled a decoupling of the facility from the manufacturing process. These design features were then clustered to identify main design strategies that enable flexibility. Findings By grouping the design features together and creating a common vocabulary, three coherent design approaches for flexible facilities were identified, each having a different potential for responding to short-term and long-term changes. These include general purpose, scalable, and dedicated facilities. Originality/value This research provides the first synthesized approach for considering flexible facility design strategies within the manufacturing sector.