Flexible manufacturing system, the word is simple to understand but indeed difficult to achieve. Many firms failed to achieve flexible manufacturing system, become history and firms who effectively achieved it, have pioneered themselves in manufacturing industry. The ultimate need to flexible manufacturing system arises from very basic rule of environment, nothing is permanent. The changing needs, choices, priorities and preferences of business or its stakeholder dynamic behaviour forces firms to be flexible enough to deliver what is required. A manufacturing company needs flexibility and system utilization for its high level of throughput. This review study emphasizes some of the major contributions to the flexible manufacturing system and recent development in the field. The study enfolds major components of flexible manufacturing system namely automatic guided vehicles (AGV), Scheduling, artificial neural network and simulation modeling.