Feasibility analysis of FMS in small and medium scale Indian industries with a hybrid approach using ISM and TOPSIS

Abstract

Small and medium scale industries play an important role in Indian economy and their strength lays in the competitiveness of their products in the world market. Backed by a strong government support in India, they continue to improve their growth rate. Despite this high growth rate, huge potential amongst the Indian small and medium scale industries still remains untapped. So there is a need to upgrade these industries so that they bloom to their full potential. For achieving increased competitiveness, the manufacturing SMEs need to replace or supplement their previous methods of production with more flexible and dynamic production systems like, flexible manufacturing system (FMS) which is characterised by shorter product development and manufacturing lead-time, better quality and flexibility, team-based work organisations, low setup/changeover times, multifunctional workers. FMS as a manufacturing strategy can help a SME to improve its processes and align it to the requirements of its customers. So this paper discusses the issues of SMEs and presents the major attributes for the adoption of FMS in SMEs and further these attributes are modelled to give a structure amongst them by using two distinct, well established modelling techniques, ISM and TOPSIS.