Abstract
Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMSs) rely on a set of technologies to quickly adapt the manufacturing system capacity and/or functionality to meet unexpected disturbances, such as fluctuation/uncertainty of demand and/or unavailability/unreliability of resources. At the operational stage, such disturbances raise new production requirements and risks, which call upon Decision-Makers (DMs) to analyze the opportunity to move from a running configuration to another more competitive one. Such a decision is generally based on an evaluation of a multitude of criteria, and several multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approaches have been suggested to help DMs with the reconfiguration process. Most existing MCDM approaches require some assignment of weights to the criteria, which is not a trivial task. Unfortunately, existing studies on MCDM for an RMS have not provided guidelines to weigh the evaluation criteria. This article fills in this gap by offering a framework to set up such weights. We provide a comprehensive set of quantitative indicators to evaluate the reconfiguration decisions during the operation of the RMS. We suggest three weighting methods that are convenient to different levels of DM expertise and desired degree of involvement in the reconfiguration process. These weighting methods are based on (1) intuitive weighting, (2) revised Simos procedural weighting combined with the Technique for Order of Preferences by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), and (3) DM independent weighting using ELECTRE IV. The implementation of the suggested framework and a comparison of the suggested methods carried out on an industrial case study are described herein.
Highlights
Manufacturing systems should have the ability to be react to design innovation, mass customization, and technological evolution [1], and to disturbances and risks that occur at the operational stage, such as fluctuation/uncertainty of demand and/or unavailability/unreliability of resources [2], Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS) have appeared as a new paradigm to provide advanced software, hardware, and decision-making techniques to increase the responsiveness, flexibility, and resilience of manufacturing systems to react to change, disturbances, and risks [3]
The majority of existing multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approaches require some assignment of weights to the criteria, which is usually entrusted to DM, who are typically asked to give their preferences by prioritizing the criteria [7]
During the operation of an RMS, the decision to move from one configuration to another usually requires an evaluation of a multitude of criteria
Summary
Manufacturing systems should have the ability to be react to design innovation, mass customization, and technological evolution [1], and to disturbances and risks that occur at the operational stage, such as fluctuation/uncertainty of demand and/or unavailability/unreliability of resources [2], Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS) have appeared as a new paradigm to provide advanced software, hardware, and decision-making techniques to increase the responsiveness, flexibility, and resilience of manufacturing systems to react to change, disturbances, and risks [3].RMS is designed at the outset for a rapid change in structure to adjust the production capacity and/or functionality quickly within a part family in response to sudden changes in manufacturing requirements [4,5].Machines 2020, 8, 8; doi:10.3390/machines8010008 www.mdpi.com/journal/machinesAt the operational stage, the occurrence of disturbances and risks call upon Decision-makerM (DM) to analyze the opportunity to switch from a running configuration to a more competitive one. Manufacturing systems should have the ability to be react to design innovation, mass customization, and technological evolution [1], and to disturbances and risks that occur at the operational stage, such as fluctuation/uncertainty of demand and/or unavailability/unreliability of resources [2], Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS) have appeared as a new paradigm to provide advanced software, hardware, and decision-making techniques to increase the responsiveness, flexibility, and resilience of manufacturing systems to react to change, disturbances, and risks [3]. Among the available reconfiguration approaches (cf Section 2), multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) assists with the selection of one configuration from several available options based on their performance according to several criteria [6]. The majority of existing MCDM approaches require some assignment of weights to the criteria, which is usually entrusted to DM, who are typically asked to give their preferences by prioritizing the criteria [7]
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