A Method Towards Smart Manufacturing Capabilities and Performance Measurement

Abstract

Smart manufacturing is an advanced manufacturing paradigm where information and communication technologies (ICTs) are integrated thoroughly into manufacturing system. Although smart manufacturing makes it possible for companies to become more agile, more adaptive to a changing environment, companies can hardly implement it in a cost-effective way because they still lack an understanding of their status quo and the goal. In this paper, an empirical method is proposed to measure the smart manufacturing capabilities and performances of a company. It firstly defines six capability levels to locate the development stage of a company. Additionally, a measurement framework is put forward to guide the measurement process. Furthermore, the measurement involves both qualitative and quantitative evaluations of the activities from the seven dimensions. Four facets, “Resource”, “Technology”, “Organization” and “Ambiance”, are used to judge the capability level of each dimension. The global capability level is derived by the synthesis of the results of all the dimensions. The method can be used to develop a roadmap precisely tailored to each individual company to help it achieve the most of smart manufacturing. To show its feasibility and effectiveness, one case study is presented at the end of this paper.