PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present an organized review of existing research on reconfigurable manufacturing system (RMS). The paper considers majority of the prominent research articles in the domain of RMS published ever since RMS was envisaged in 1997.Design/methodology/approachThe paper systematically reviews, classifies and analyses the published literature on postulations and design of RMSs. The general observations from the literature and research gaps recognized thereon are highlighted at the end of each section/sub-section.FindingsThe paper reveals important aspects related to RMS research since its inception. It also recognizes the areas of RMS research requiring more focus. The study also highlights open issues and future directions for further research.Practical implicationsThe literature in the domain of RMS has so far been narrow. This paper reviews the prominent research in this field and presents an overview of its conceptual developments and various mathematical models for the RMS design and its optimization so far developed by the researchers. Further, manufacturing advancements and future directions have also been proposed for the efficient execution of RMS paradigm in manufacturing industries.Originality/valueThe paper provides an organized listing of published research work in the field of RMS. This work will provide an insight to the researchers, practitioners and others related directly or indirectly to this field to develop and understand better strategies for supervising and controlling the smooth implementation of RMS.

Abstract-In the present global scenario companies are forced to compete in product varieties and speed to market as well as in price. Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMSs) have been envisaged as a manufacturing paradigms to face these challenges. The foundation of RMS lies on the premise of group technology. The present work highlights the peculiarities of RMS vis a vis CMS, another group technology based manufacturing paradigm. It attempts to evolve a methodology for RMS cell formation; composition of part families and subsequently recognition of operation groups. Bond Energy Algorithm has been incorporated in the present work and considered as the foundation technique to structure the part family formation in RMS. The effectiveness of the methodology has been compared with some standard problems from the CMS cell formation literature and provides an outline for the RMS design which provides assuring manufacturing paradigm for future.