CONTENTS

ABSTRACT..................................................................................................... ........................2 1 INTODUCTION....................................................................................................................3 2 RECONFIGURABLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS................................................4 2.1 CHARACTERSISTCIS OF RECONFIGURATION......................................................5 2.2 PRINCIPLES OF RECONFIGURATION......................................................................6 2.3 CLASSIFICATION OF CONFIGURATION.................................................................6 2.4 COMPARING RMS WITH CELL CONFIGURATION................................................10 2.5 CALCULATING THE NUMBER OF RMS CONFIGURATION.................................11 3 DEFINING SYSTEM SCALABILITY.................................................................................12 4 FORMULATION OF SCALABILITY PLANNING..........................................................14 4.1 ASSUMPTIONS................................................................................................................14 4.2 INPUTS..............................................................................................................................15 4.3 DECISION VARIABLES.................................................................................................16 4.4 OPTIMIZATION MODEL................................................................................................16 4.5 CONSTRAINTS.................................................................................................................17 5 OPTIMAL SOLUTION APPROACH USING GENETIC ALGORITHM....................14 5.1 STRING REPRESENTATION..............................................................................................18 6 CASE STUDY..........................................................................................................................19 7 ADVANTGES..........................................................................................................................23 8 CONCLUSIONS......................................................................................................................24 9 REFERENCES........................................................................................................................25

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ABSTRACT

This study explains the rationale for the development of reconfigurable manufacturing systems, which posses the advantages both of dedicated lines he and of flexible systems. The paper defines the core characteristics and design principles of reconfigurable manufacturing systems and describes the structure recommended for practical RMS characteristics. It also presents a scalability planning methodology for reconfigurable manufacturing systems that can incrementally scale the system capacity by reconfiguring an existing system. An optimization algorithm based on Genetic Algorithm is developed to determine the most economical way to reconfigure an existing system. Adding or removing machines to match the new throughput requirements and concurrently rebalancing system for each configuration, accomplishes the system reconfiguration. The proposed approach is validated through a case study.

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1. INTODUCTION

Henry Fords invention of the moving assembly line in 1913 marked the beginning of the mass production paradigm. Mass production was made possible only through the invention of dedicates machining lines that produces the engines, transmissions and main components of automobiles. Such dedicated manufacturing lines have a very high rate of production for the single part type they produce, and they are very profitable when demand for this part is high. These dedicated transfer lines were the most profitable systems for producing large quantities of products until the mid-1990s.

Manufacturers today face more challenges than ever before due to high volatile market, which creates large fluctuations in product demand. In order to remain competitive, companies must design manufacturing systems that not only produce high-quality products at low cost, but also respond to market changes in an economical way. A responsive manufacturing system is one whose production capacity is adjustable to fluctuations in product demand, and whose functionality is adaptable to new products. Responsiveness enables manufacturing systems to quickly launch new products on existing systems, and to react rapidly and cost-effectively to: 1. Market changes, including changes in product demand. 2. Product changes, including changes in current products and introduction of new products. 3. System failures (ongoing production despite equipment failures). Traditional manufacturing systems - both dedicated lines and FMS are ill suited to meet the requirements dictated by the new competitive environment. Dedicated manufacturing lines (DMLs) are based on inexpensive fixed automation that produces a companys core products or parts over a long period and at high volume. Each dedicated line is typically designed to produce a single part at a high rate of production achieved by utilizing all tools simultaneously. When product demand is high, the cost per part is particularly low. DMI.s are cost effective as long as they can operate at full capacity, but with increasing pressure from global competition and over capacity worldwide, dedicated lines usually do not operate at full capacity. Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) can produce a variety of products with a
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changeable mix on the same system. Typically, FMS consist of general-purpose computernumerically-controlled (CNC) machines and other programmable forms of automation. Because CNC machines are characterized by single-tool operation, FMS throughput much lower than is

that of a DML The combination of high equipment cost and low

throughput makes the cost per part using FMS relatively high.

1. RECONFIGURABLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS

A cost effective response to market changes requires a new manufacturing approach. Such an approach not only must combine the high throughput of a DML with the flexibility of FMS, but also be capable of responding to market changes by adapting the manufacturing system and its elements quickly and efficiently. These capabilities are encompassed in

reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMS), whose capacity and functionality can be changed exactly when needed. Three features capacity, functionality, and cost - are what differentiate the three types of manufacturing systems - RMS, DML and FMS. While DML and FMS are usually fixed at the capacity-functionality plane. RMS are not constrained by capacity or by functionality, and are capable of changing over time in response to changing market circumstances. Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS) constitutes a new class of systems characterized by adjustable structure and design focus. The flexibility of RMS, though really only "customized flexibility", provides all the flexibility needed to process that entire part family. Highly productive, cost effective systems are created by (i) part-family focus, and (ii) customized flexibility that enables the simultaneous operation of different tools[12].RMS systems are de signed to cope with situations where both productivity and sys tem responsiveness are of vital importance. Each RMS system is designed to produce a particular family of parts. Therefore, Reconfigurable manufacturing system can be defined as follows: Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS) are designed at the outset for rapid change in structure, as well as in hardware and software components, in order to quickly adjust production capacity and functionality within a part family in response to sudden changes in market or regulatory requirements.
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2.1 CHARACTERISTICS OF RECONFIGURATION

Customization (flexibility limited to part family)

System or machine flexibility limited to a single product family, thereby obtaining customized flexibility. Convertibility (design for functionality changes)

The ability to easily transform the functionality of existing systems and machines to suit new production requirements Scalability (design for capacity changes)

The ability to easily modify production capacity by adding or subtracting manufacturing resources (e.g. machines) and/or changing components of the system Modularity (components are modular)

The compartmentalization of operational functions into units that can be manipulated between alternate production schemes for optimal arrangement Integrability (interfaces for rapid integration)

The ability to integrate modules rapidly and precisely by a set of mechanical, informational, and control interfaces that facilitate integration and communication. Diagnosability (design for easy diagnostics)

The ability to automatically read the current state of a system to detect and diagnose the root causes of output product defects, and quickly correct operational defects.

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2.2 PRINCIPLES OF RECONFIGURATION

1. An RMS system provides adjustable production resources to respond to unpredictable market changes and intrinsic system events: RMS capacity can be rapidly scalable in small increments. RMS functionality can be rapidly adapted to new products. RMS built-in adjustment capabilities facilitate rapid response to unexpected equipment failures. 2. An RMS system is designed around a product family, with just enough customized flexibility to produce all members of that family. 3. The RMS core characteristics should be embedded in the system as a whole, as well as in its components (mechanical, communications and control).

2.3 CLASSIFICATION OF CONFIGURATIONS

Classifying configurations requires determining the number of possible configurations when the daily demand, Q. {parts/day), and the total machining time for the part, t (min/part), are given. In reality, machining times vary widely depending on the equipment involved, but, to begin we assume these are given. The minimum number of machines, N, needed in the system is calculated by the equation

N= Q* t / (Min/day available x Machine reliability)...............................(1) The following calculations assume 100% reliability of all pieces of equipment (i.e., machine reliability = 1). The resulting number of machines calculated by Eq. (1) must be rounded to the next larger integer.

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For example, if 500 parts per day are needed and the processing time for each part is 9.5 min, at least five machines are needed in the system assuming working time of 1000 min/day. First, configurations are classified either as symmetrical or as asymmetrical, based on whether a symmetric axis can be drawn along the configuration. A configuration is then evaluated by its machine arrangement and connections. For example, configurations a and b have identical machine arrangements {one in stage 1, two in stage 2, and two in stage 3), but they differ because of different connections among the machines-configuration b uses cross coupling between stages 2 and 3. The type of material handling system determines the connections of a configuration.

Fig: 1 Configurations with five machines

Asymmetric Configurations add immense complexity and are not viable in real manufacturing lines, as explained below. Asymmetric configurations may be sub-classified as (a) variable-process configurations or (b) single-process configurations with non-identical machines in at least one of the stages. Corresponding examples are shown in Fig.2 (a) and (b), respectively. Variable-process configurations are characterized by possible non-identical flow-paths for the part. They therefore need several process plans and corresponding setups. For example, the system depicted in Fig. 6 has a number of possible flow-paths: a-b-c-d-e, g-c-f, g-c-d-e, etc. The process plan to be executed depends on the flow-path of the part being processed in the system.

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This is absolutely impractical because (1) designers will not go to the effort to design multiple process plans for the same part, and (2) different process plans and corresponding flow-paths increase part quality problems and make quality error detection more complicated. In symmetric configurations, in contrast, the processing times of each machine in a particular stage are equal. Mixing different types of machines that perform exactly the same sequence of tasks in the same manufacturing stage is absolutely impractical. System designers should also not consider this class of configuration, due to their excessive complexity. The conclusion is: It is more likely that in a real machining context, only symmetric configurations would be considered; these are always single process configurations with identical machines in each stage. Symmetric configurations may be further divided into three basic classes, as shown in Fig. 3. A designer of manufacturing systems should consider only the following three classes: Cell configurations are configurations consisting of several serial manufacturing lines (i.e., cells) arranged in parallel with no crossovers, as shown in Fig. 4.

RMS configurations are configurations with crossover connections after every stage, as shown in Fig.4. A part from any machine in stage f can be transferred to any machine in stage (f + 1).All machines and operations in every stage are identical. All three US domestic automobile manufacturers use these configurations in the machining of their power train components (a typical system may consist of 15 stages and 6 machines per stage). Configurations in which there are some stages with no crossovers. This class includes combinations of the previous two classes.

Fig 2: Two classes of asymmetric configurations

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Fig 3: Three classes of symmetric configurations

Fig 4: Symmetric configurations of Class 1 and Symmetric configurations of Class II

Fig 5: A practical reconfigurable manufacturing system.

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2.4 COMPARING RMS CONFIGURATIONS WITH CELL CONFIGURATIONS

We compare the two main practical configurations according to four criteria: investment cost, line-balancing ability, scalability options, and productivity when machines fail. For a more general analysis of the impact of configuration on system performance. Capital investment. The configurations shown in Figs. 4 have identical machine arrangements- three stages with two machines in each stage - but the connections are quite different in that they use different part handling devices, each requiring a different capital investment. The entire part handling system in Fig.4 is simpler and has a smaller number of handling devices compared to the RMS system shown in Fig. 5.Thus, the capital investment in the RMS configuration is higher. Line balancing. A major drawback of cell configuration is that it imposes severe limitations when balancing the system. For example, if just one product is produced, the processing time in all stages of the cell configuration must be exactly equal to be perfectly balanced. By contrast, to achieve a balanced RMS configuration only the following relationship needs to be satisfied

Ts1/ Ns1 = Ts2/Ns2 = Tsi/Nsi

.............................

(2)

where Nsi is the number of machines in stage i, and Tsi is the processing time per machine in stage i. Therefore, in RMS configurations the number of machines per stage is not necessarily equal in all stages. The number of machines in the various stages of RMS configurations may be adjusted to provide accurate line balancing, which consequently yields improved productivity. System scalability. RMS configurations are far more scalable than cell configurations. Adding one machine to one of the stages and rebalancing the system enables adding a small increment of capacity. In the cell configuration, a complete additional parallel line must be added to increase the overall system capacity. In markets with unstable demand, scalability represents an important advantage of RMS configurations.

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Productivity. If machine reliability is low due to crossovers at each stage, an RMS configuration offers higher productivity than that of a cell configuration. As shown in Fig. 4, if machines in two different lines and at two different stages (marked with x) are down, the entire system is down (i.e., throughput = zero). For RMS, in contrast, under the same conditions - two machines not working (marked with x in Fig. 4) - throughput is still at50%. So, RMS are more productive systems from the perspective of machine downtime. Nevertheless, the RMS material handling system is more complex, with its so-called "cell gantries" that enable crossovers (see Fig. 5).If one of the cell gantries is down, the entire RMS system will not work. In contrast, cellular systems with parallel lines do not contain cell gantries and are therefore more reliable from the material handling system perspective.

2.4 CALCULATING THE NUMBER OF RMS CONFIGURATIONS

Closed equations for calculating the number of configurations with N machines exist only for RMS-type configurations. The basic equations for calculating the number of possible RMS configurations are given below. K, the number of possible RMS configurations with N machines arranged in up to m stages is calculated by: X=

m=1

( N-1M-1 )=2N-1 ......................................(3)

K, the number of possible configurations with N machines arranged in exactly m stages is calculated by: X= (N-1)! / (N-m)!*(m-1)! ..........................................(4) For example, for N = 7 machines arranged in up to 7 stages, Eq.(3) yields K = 64 configurations, and if arranged in exactly 3 stages, Eq.(4) yields K =15 RMS configurations. The mathematical results of these two equations for any N and m may be arranged in a triangular format, known as a Pascal triangle, shown in Fig.6 .The numerical value of each cell in the Pascal triangle is calculated as follows. The numerical value corresponding to N machines arranged in m stages is calculated by: The value for N machines in m stages = (the value for N - 1 machines in m - 1 stages)+ (the value for N - 1 machines in m stages).

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For example, in Fig.14, the cell of N = 5 and m = 3 shows6, which is the sum of 3 +3of the previous line of N -1 = 4 machines with 2 and 3 stages. The triangle also allows the designer to immediately visualize the number of possible RMS configurations for N machines arranged in m stages. For example, there are 15 RMS configurations when 7 machines are allowed to be arranged in exactly 3 stages. In addition, the Pascal triangle allows the designer to immediately calculate the number of possible RMS configurations for N machines arranged between i stages and j stages (i,j < N).

Fig 6: The Pascal triangle to calculate the number of RMS configuration.

3 DEFINING SYSTEM SCALABILITY

To adapt the throughput of manufacturing systems to the fluctuations in product demand, the system capacities must be adjusted quickly and cost-effectively. Dedicated lines do not have scalable capacity and cannot cope with large fluctuations in product demand. This challenge can only be met by flexible or reconfigurable manufacturing systems, which are composed of CNC machines or reconfigurable machines,as these systems are scalable in small

increments accomplished by adding or removing individual machines as a need arises. Note that the number of stages always remains unchanged during the scalability process. We define system scalability, in percentage, as: System scalability = 100 - smallest incremental capacity in percentage

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If the minimal capacity increment by which the system output can be adjusted to meet new market demand is small, then the system is highly scalable. For example, if a serial line (Fig. 7a) needs to increase its production capacity to satisfy a larger market demand, an entire new line must be added. The step-size of this addition doubles the production capacity of the system. Mathematically, the minimum increment of adding production capacity in a serial line is 100% of the system, i.e., adding a whole new line, making the scalability of a serial line 0%.. Doubling the line capacity will be expensive because there is no guarantee that the extra capacity will ever be fully utilized, risking thereby a substantial financial loss. Thus, zero scalability means that in order to increase the system capacity, the entire production line must be duplicated. When markets are volatile, designing a manufacturing system with zero scalability is not a good engineering solution. Similar scalability calculations for the other systems in fig. 7 show: Configuration b has a scalability of 50% and Configuration c has67%.Configurations d and e have a scalability of84%; the highest possible for 6-machine configurations. A minimum increment of only one sixth of the system{16%)- in these cases, one machine can be added to increase system capacity; for example, a machine can be added to Stage 2 of Configuration d as shown in Fig. 7d. In this example, the configuration depicted in Fig. 7c of a two stage system with three machines per stage, might be a compromise between reasonable scalability and investment cost. In this case, if a product requires machining on both the upper and side surfaces, the three machines in the first stage might be 3-axis vertical milling machines, and the three machines in the second stage might be 3-axis horizontal milling machines. Conversely, in a parallel system, all six machines in Fig. 7e must be 5-axis milling machines making the system much more expensive. In the system in fig. 7c, capacity scalability must be performed in steps of 33.3% by adding one vertical machine and one horizontal machine, rather than in steps of 16.6% as with the parallel configuration. Adding a step of 16.6% in fig.7e in practice means adding one S-axis machine with a large tool magazine that contains every tool needed for the whole part processing - an expensive addition.

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Fig:7 Five scalable configurations

4 FORMULATION OF SCALABILITY PLANNING PROBLEM

We propose below a practical method to determine the most cost-effective system reconfiguration to meet a new market demand. To perform system scalability planning, many factors need to be taken into consideration. These include a detailed process plan, setup plan, machine capability, and the number of spots reserved in the original system at each stage for adding machines, if needed. When reconfiguring an existing manufacturing system, Simultaneous reconfiguration planning and system rebalancing attempts are required to maximize the capacity of systems, and therefore, minimize the number of machines needed to be added. In this section an optimization model for scalability planning is introduced.

4.1 ASSUMPTIONS

The following assumptions are made based on the current manufacturing practice in the power train industry. - A multi-stage system with a configuration similar to that shown in Fig.1(or Fig.3) is considered. Parts are moved from one stage to another through conveyors and delivered to different machines within a stage using gantries.

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- The number of stages must remain unchanged during any reconfiguration process. This is to keep the system setup plan unchanged in order to avoid major adjustments of process plans, thereby minimizing the impact of system reconfiguration on product quality. - All the machines within the same stage perform exactly the same sequence of tasks. - There are reserved spaces for adding new machines in the stages and material handlers can be extended to deliver parts to the newly added machines.

4.2 INPUTS
Scalability planning requires the following five types of inputs: Configuration information Number of stages-L; number of machines in each stage Ni, Where i =1,2, ..., L; maximum number of machines allowed in each stage Mi, i =1,2, ..., L Stage characteristics Each manufacturing stage has capabilities that are defined by a set of characteristics of the stage. These include machine tool characteristics such as functionality, power, accuracy and machining ranges, as well as fixture features such as face accessibility, which defines the faces that are accessible by the cutting tool. When a set of tasks is assigned to a stage, the necessary capabilities must fall into the set of characteristics of the stage. Assuming that the number of characteristics of each stage is K, a capability matrix S stores all possible characteristics of each stage. S[i, j) = d: d is jth key characteristic of stage i, where 1<=i<=L Manufacturing tasks - Task precedence: manufacturing tasks must be performed at a certain order. Each task can only be performed after all its parent tasks have been completed. A two-dimension binary matrix Pre[lN, 1..N), where N is the number of tasks to be processed, is used to represent the precedence tree. Pre[i,j] = { 1, 0, if task i must be performed before task j otherwise
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- Task characteristics: these include task type, access direction, dimension, accuracy and power needed to perform the task. For a task to be assigned to a stage, its characteristics must be included in the set of characteristics of that stage. Assuming the number of characteristic of each task is R, a task characteristic matrix K is used to store the characteristic of each task. K(i,j)=f:f is the jth key characteristic of task i. Where 1<=i<= N and 1 <=j <=R. Machine reliability information Machine reliability can be expressed by two parameters: MFBF (Mean Time Between Failure), and MTTR(Mean Time to Repair). Demand The system must be reconfigured so its new capacity will fulfil the new demand D new.

4.3 DECISION VARIABLES

Two decision variables need to be determined:(1) machine allocation array, M[i), which determines how many machines are to be added to the system and where to add them, and (2) task allocation array, T[i], which describes how the tasks should be reallocated when the new machines are added to or removed from the system.

M[i] = number of machine being added to stage i, 1<=i<=L; M[i] >0 for adding machines, and M[i] < 0 for removing machines from systems. T[i] = s ,s is an index of stage to which the task i is assigned, 1<=s<=L

4.4 OPTIMIZATION MODEL

The objective of scalability planning is to minimize the number of machines needed to meet a new market demand. This can be expressed by Eq.(1):

Minimize (i=1L (Ni +M [i]))

...............................

(5)

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4.5 CONSTRAINTS

1. Precedence constraints: Pre[i,j] T[i]<= T[j), i= 1, 2, ..., N, j = 1, 2, ..., N ............... (6)

For two tasks i and j, if task i must be performed before j, it will be assigned to the same or a preceding stage as j. 2. Characteristic constraints:

..........(7)

Eq.(7) means that if a task i is assigned to Stages, all its characteristics must be contained in the set of characteristics of Stage s.

1. Space constraints:

The number of machines added to, or removed from each stage must not exceed the maximum limit. M[i]<= Mmax[i], i= 1, 2, ..., L ............................... (4)

4 . Throughput constraints:

After the new machines are added, the system throughput must be equal to or larger than the new market demand.

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5 .AN OPTIMAL SOLUTION APPROACH USING GENETIC ALGORITHM

A Genetic Algorithm (GA) is a structured heuristic that searches for good solutions using a mechanism that mimics "survival of the fittest." Mixed integer problems with complex functions and combinatorial explosion on feasible space, like the scalability planning problem, can be solved efficiently by GA. In a GA, populations of solutions are randomly initiated first. These are represented in a string format and are evaluated to provide some measure of their fitness (performance).This initial population is then propagated into future generations by applying genetic operators to its members. After a number of generations, the algorithm converges to the near-optimal solution to the problem.

5.1 STRING PRESENTATION

For a given task precedence tree, for example in Fig.8, the first step of applying a GA is to represent one possible solution to the problem by the format of a string, namely encoding (for example in Fig.4b). A scalability scheme is encoded by an integer string which consists of two portions, corresponding to task allocation scheme and system configuration, respectively. Fig.8 depicts examples of string representation of manufacturing tasks designed for task allocation. The length of each string is equal to the number of manufacturing tasks that need to be assigned to the manufacturing system. Each digit of the string contains two kinds of information: the position, gene, and the value, allele. The position indicates the sequential number of a task, and the value indicates the stage index which decides what stage the task will be assigned to. In this example, nine tasks are needed to complete a part in a system with four stages. They must be per formed in the sequence depicted in Fig. 8a. An integer string with nine digits is used to present the nine tasks. For example, the first digit represents task 1 and the second digit represents task 2, and soon. To ensure all the constraints are satisfied when assigning tasks to stages, a task-to-stage index table, or T2S as shown in Fig. 8c, is first built by comparing the key task characteristic to the key stage characteristic.
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The stage number can then be found in the T2S table according to the task number (gene) and the stage index number (allele). For example, the value of Task 6 in the string is 2, signifying it will be allocated to stage T2S [2,6] which is OP 3 in the manufacturing system. Table T2S also determines the value range of each allele Ai which is the number of available stages that this task i can be assigned to. In the example of Fig.4, the range of gene 1 is At =1: the range of gene 2 isA2 =3: the range of gene 9 is A 9 =2 and so on.

Fig 8: String representation of task allocation During this process, it is made sure that the precedence constraints are not violated.

6 .CASE STUDY

The case selected is the rough machining process of an automotive V6 cylinder head provided by an industrial partner of the NSF Engineering Research Centre for the

Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems. There are 141 features on the part, which can be grouped into 43 machining tasks, including milling, drilling, boring, spot facing, and tapping. The total time needed for the rough machining is 1019 s. Because of its complexity, this part is ideal for the study as it permits many process design solutions for different system configurations. The machines used for all stages are four-axis CNC machining centres which are capable of completing all the machining tasks. Fig. 6a shows the part and Fig. 9b shows the machine.

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6.1 BASELINE CONFIGURATIONS

There are four feasible setups that depend on the part process plan, as depicted in Fig. 10.To achieve the best system throughput, each system configuration needs its corresponding setup plan. Three system configurations, 3 x 4, 4 x 3 and 6 x 2, are used as baselines to study the scalability planning.Fig.11 gives three system configurations and their line balancing results. The letter under the OP number represents the setup scheme defined in Fig.10.

6.2 SCALABILITY PLANNING RESULTS

Assume a 4 x 3 configuration (Fig. 14b) is currently being used to fulfil a production demand of 30JPH jobs per hour). Also assume that a maximum of two machines can be added to each stage while the setup plan remains unchanged. When the new production demand changes to 35JPH, the proposed scalability planning algorithm found that 2 new machines need to be added to the system, as is shown in Fig. 15a. The rebalancing results per machine and per stage are shown in Fig. 15b and c, respectively. After adding two machines system capacity increased to 36.6JPH. Compared to duplicating a four machine serial line, the new configuration only needs two new machines to fulfil the new production demand. Fig. 15a also shows that instead of being added to two different stages, the two machines are added to the same stage. This is because the machining tasks are not evenly distributed on each accessible face in the selected setup plan. Machines tend to be added to the stages with a setup which allow access to more tasks. This way system throughput can be maximized and the number of required machines can be minimized. For each configuration in Fig11, reconfigurations for adding up to 5 machines to existing systems are calculated. Figs. 13-15 show the reconfigurations for three-stage system, fourstage system and six stage system respectively. Again, Figs.13-15 show that for a given case, machines are not evenly added to each stage. Some stages tend to require more machines than others to maintain the work load balance of the system. The number of machines and their locations to be added to the system can be optimized by the proposed method.
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From the cost-effective point of view, we suggest scalability planning be performed concurrently with the design of a new manufacturing system. This way, optimal locations where future machines should be installed can be identified in advance. Thus, material handling systems can be optimized for future scalability planning to reduce the life-time investment cost.

Fig 13,14: Reconfigurations for scalability planning for 3*4 and 4*3 systems

Fig 15: Reconfigurations for scalability planning for 6*2 systems

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7 . ADVANTAGES

It can be modular Easy to integrability; Customization; Convertibility obtained within reasonable cost to manufacturers; Rapid scalability to the desired volume Diagnosability.

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8. CONCLUSION
The study elaborates in details on the scalability concept and presents a systematic approach for scalability planning- adding or subtracting the exact capacity needed to fulfil market demand. The approach utilizes a scalability planning process that simultaneously changes the system configuration and rebalances the configures system.

Till now, the reconfigurable manufacturing systems are not yet a matured area; this is why the industry feedback is not satisfactory. Further research is necessary at the machine level, where the technical and economic consequences are very important, at entire manufacturing level. The reconfiguration science will form the basis for a vital production technology in this era of global market competitiveness that it will involves into entirely new manufacturing field with enduring benefits for the economy and society.

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9. REFERENCES

1. Scalability planning for reconfigurable manufacturing systems by, Wencai Wang and Yoram KorenJournal on Manufacturing Engineering 2. Design of reconfigurable manufacturing systems by, Yoram Koren and Moshe Shpitalni Journal on Manufacturing Engineering 3. A Glance at Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS): A Possible Connotation on a Path To High Performance by, Csar H. Ortega Jimnez and Ignacio Egua Salinas

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