Evaluation and selection of flexible manufacturing systems using MACBETH method

Abstract

Flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is a centrally controlled manufacturing unit consisting of numerically controlled machine tools and material handling equipment. Selection of an appropriate FMS is a complicated task as it involves huge capital investment. Due to tough competition in the globalised market, decisions regarding these investments become crucial for the survival of any manufacturing industry. Decision for selection of an FMS is observed to be based on numerous conflicting tangible and intangible criteria. In this paper, the application of measuring attractiveness by a categorical-based evaluation technique (MACBETH) is illustrated by solving two real time FMS selection problems. In this method, semantic scales are used for pair-wise comparison of performance of the alternatives and also to determine the criteria weights. Further, each category of semantic scales is converted to normalised quantitative values and ranking of FMS alternatives is obtained by the weighted mean method. Even though, MACBETH method is well known for qualitative performance measures, it is also capable to deal with quantitative performance measures. The derived FMS rankings are observed to be quite satisfactory and well acceptable to the decision makers.