Assessment of Alternative Manufacturing Work Cells for SMEs

Abstract

Globally small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) are confronting serious challenges due to dynamic market demands. In pursuit of such situations they opt to be lean and flexible. Their demand have numerous varieties in product geometry and manufacturing processes. To cater such demand among the several existing strategies, reconfigurable manufacturing work cell (RWC) is the most prudent choice owing to its numerous benefits. This study offer an assessment lens to those who look for reconfiguration of their manufacturing setup. It is prudent to consider various RWC alternatives while wanting to reconfigure existing configuration change from time to time. The paper proposes a grey relational approach coupled with fuzzy analytical hierarchy weight to evaluate alternative RWCs. The simulation platform is adopted to exhibit performance of each RWC. The developed approach is to aid decision makers in identifying the most suitable RWC for the SME.