A new method for measuring process flexibility of product design

Abstract

Process flexibility enables product designers to accommodate changing requirements in a timely and costeffective way. However, in order to effectively guide process flexibility in terms of investment in product design, one must be able to objectively measure process flexibility. Hence, this paper introduces a new quantitative method to measure the process flexibility of product design. Instead of directly measuring the available process flexibility, this method introduces a surrogate value (i.e., the reduced project cost resulting from process flexibility) to indirectly measure process flexibility, with consideration of requirement variations. Then, the relationships between process flexibility and impact factors of requirement variations are investigated based on the proposed method. A set of simulation experiments indicates that the method proposed and related propositions are also suitable for complex product design.

Research on the Modelling and Development of Flexibility in Production System Design Phase Driven by Digital Twins

“…Flexibility in customization allows SMEs to customize the required manufacturing system by themselves. Flexibility in design [25], helps to develop new manufacturing systems easily by making appropriate changes from the existing ones. Tullio Tolio [26] considers the correct configuration or reconfiguration ability of the production system is the key technology in the flexibility transmission line design to meet the demand for new product characteristics change.…”

A hybrid multi-criteria decision-making approach to assess the enablers of manufacturing flexibility under fuzzy environment

“…On the other hand, in engineering literature, manufacturing flexibility is analysed from a technological perspective with the main focus on assessment and evaluation of advanced manufacturing technology using simulation and modelling techniques (Chuu, 2005; van Hop and Ruengsak, 2005). In relatively recent research, Zhang et al (2017) proposed a quantitative method to measure the process flexibility of product design using the concept of requirement variations. The focus of analytical approaches is limited to the selection, evaluation and implementation of either a flexible manufacturing system or advanced manufacturing technology (Yadav and Jayswal, 2017), and therefore, it is essential to expand the application of analytical approaches to assess enablers of manufacturing flexibility.…”

A Study on the Correlations among Product Design, Statistics Education, and Purchase Intention – A Case of Toy Industry

“…With literature review, (1) possible purchase, (2) intention of purchase, and (3) consideration for purchase, proposed by Zhang et al (2017), are applied to measure purchase intention, and the questions are used for the dimensions of consumers' purchase intention in this study. Soesanti and Syahputra (2016) mentioned that consumers, when the product design conformed to the need, would be satisfied and memorize the product satisfaction for the reference of future purchase decision.…”