Investigating the Flexibility of a Hybrid Manufacturing System Using Simulation Approach

Abstract

Different designs of manufacturing systems are adopted in industry today. A good manufacturing design should be flexible to compensate for uncertainties such as demand fluctuations and machine breakdowns. A new conceptual manufacturing system called Multi-Channel Manufacturing (MCM) is expected to provide flexibility and efficiency under uncertainties. This paper proposes the first approach to address the usefulness of MCM. This research tries to identify the key characteristics of MCM and the manufacturing environments for which MCM should perform well. Through simulation models, different manufacturing scenarios are analyzed and a suitable manufacturing system design for each scenario is identified. The simulation results illustrate that with limited material handling capacity and opportunities for setup time reduction, MCM can outperform other manufacturing formations.