Flexibility development – a personal retrospective

Abstract

This paper describes the development of flexibility through my personal views and involvement in researching this complex concept. It differentiates between two modelling perspectives: the bottom-up perspective (from the flexibility of elements to integrated flexibility) of the early researchers for modelling flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs) and the more recent top-down perspective, from flexibility as a strategy to resources needed for implementing it. The bottom-up perspective is represented here by three papers. One paper focuses on Petri nets as a modelling tool, another offers a multi-factor design of experiments (DOE) view on factors affecting the performances of an FMS, and the third one presents a framework of logistic flexibility. The top-down perspective focuses on supply chain flexibility and uses quality function deployment (QFD) as a hierarchical modelling technique. An original framework for analysing the flexibility of generic objects, utilising cloud diagrams, is also presented. In all these papers a variety of changes that flexibility has to cope with are modelled, enabling the viewing of flexibility as a powerful ingredient for responding to changes and reducing risks in uncertain and changeable environments.