Abstract
Flexible manufacturing systems are becoming increasingly important as customers increasingly want customized products. Also, the trend of the product life cycles to become shorter and shorter causes the proliferation of flexible manufacturing systems. Proper layout is key to making the manufacturing system truly flexible. Novel research and this article show how the Systematic Layout Planning method can be applied to the design of flexible manufacturing systems and, going further, how the design process can be supported by manufacturing process simulation.
Highlights
The essence of flexible manufacturing is adaptability - that is, the ability to adapt to changes in product requirements without compromising quality
Flexible production systems need to be designed to adapt to changes, such as small changes in a product, the addition of production volumes or completely new products
It is important to see that the life cycle of flexible manufacturing systems can be extended, in most cases with the introduction of a new product, which means that the system must be prepared for the introduction of new elements and new machines during its life cycle
Summary
The essence of flexible manufacturing is adaptability - that is, the ability to adapt to changes in product requirements without compromising quality. The Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) is the manufacturing method that helps to achieve this and can reduce the production time and the number of resources required. This, requires automation of key manufacturing processes in these systems, including machining and assembly, loading and unloading, and data processing. In the case of flexible production systems, it is very important to minimize losses as even the smallest loss per piece becomes a significant loss due to the large number of pieces. The seven main losses in lean are excess activity, handling, inventory, transportation, waiting, overproduction, and scrap. Four of these losses are due to improper layout design; they are inventory, shipping, waiting, and overcapacity as these are directly related to layout design
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