DOI 10.1007/s00170-005-0150-6
R. Venkata Rao
Received: 13 December 2004 / Accepted: 15 April 2005 / Published online: 11 January 2006
# Springer-Verlag London Limited 2006
1 Introduction
A flexible manufacturing system (FMS) consists of a group
of processing workstations (usually CNC machine tools)
interconnected by an automated material handling and
storage system and controlled by a distributed computer
system. The reason the FMS is called flexible is that it is
capable of processing a variety of different part styles
simultaneously at the various workstations, and the mix of
part styles and quantities of production can be adjusted in
response to changing demand patterns. The evolution of
flexible manufacturing systems offers great potential for
increasing flexibility and changing the basis of competition
by ensuring both cost-effective and customized manufacturing at the same time.
The decision to invest in FMS and other advanced manufacturing technology has been an issue in the practitioner
and academic literature for over two decades. An effective
justification process requires the consideration of many
quantitative factors (e.g. costs involved, floor space requirements, etc.) and qualitative factors (e.g. product-mix flexi-
R. V. Rao (*)
School of Mechanical Engineering,
Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University,
Kakrial Post, Near Panthal, Udhampur District,
J&K State, 182 121, India
e-mail: ravipudirao@rediffmail.com
1102
Attributes TC
2
A1
TC
6a
SR
6 21
6
a
B EMP 6
6 31
6a
TT
6 41
6
4 a51
PF
RF
a61
SR EMP TT
a12 a13 a14
A2
a32
a23
A3
a24
a34
a42
a43
A4
a52
a53
a54
PF RF
3
a15 a16
a25 a26 7
7
7
a35 a36 7
7
a45 a46 7
7
7
A5 a56 5
a62
a63
a64
a65
A6
(1)
1103
perB
6
Y
Ai
i1
5
6
3
4
X
X
X
X
5
X
6
X
aij aji Ak Al Am An
4
X
5
X
6
4
5
X
X
X
6
X
aij ajk aki aik akj aji Al Am An
3
6
5
6
5
X
X
X
X
X
6
X
4
5
6
5
6
6
X
X
X
X
X
X
aij ajk aki aik akj aji alm aml An
i1 ji1 kj1 l1 ml1 n1
2
5
6
6
6
6
X
X
X
X
X
X
(2)
aij ajk akl alm ami aim aml alk akj aji An
3
5
6
6
5
6
X
X
X
X
X
X
aij ajk akl ali ail alk akj aji amn anm
i1 ji1 ki1 lj1 ml nm1
1
5
6
4
5
X
X
X
X
X
6
X
aij ajk aki aik akj aji alm amn anl aln anm aml
1
6
3
6
5
X
X
X
X
X
6
X
aij aji akl alk amn anm
1
5
6
6
6
6
X
X
X
X
X
X
aij ajk akl alm amn ani ain anm aml alk akj aji
2
3
a12
a13
A2
a23
a32
A3
aM2
aM3
(3)
1104
perC
M
Y
Ai
i1
M
X
M
1
X
M
X
::::::::::
l1
i1 ji1 kj1
M3
X
M
X
M1
X
M
X
M
X
M
X
M2
X
X M1
M
X
M
X
M M1
M
X
X X
M
X
M
X
M3
X
X M1
M
X
M
X
M5
X
X M1
M
X
::: ::: ::: :
aij ajk akl alm ami aim aml alk akj aji An Ao ::: ::At AM
M
X
M5
X
M
M3
M
M1
X
X X
X
Mt1
M
X
M
M
M
M
X
X
X
X
aij ajk akl ali ail alk akj aji amn anm Ao ::: ::At AM
M
X
aij ajk aki aik akj aji alm amn anl aln anm aml Ao ::: ::At AM
M
X
Mt1
Mt1
M
M M1
M
X
X
X X
M M2
X
X M1
X
aij ajk aki aik akj aji alm aml An Ao ::: ::At AM
Mt1
aij ajk akl ali ail alk akj aji Am An Ao ::: ::At AM
Mt1
aij aji akl alk Am An Ao ::: ::At AM
Mt1
aij ajk aki aik akj aji Al Am An Ao ::: ::At AM
Mt1
M
X
aij aji Ak Al Am An Ao ::: ::At AM
Mt1
i1 ji1
M2
X
X M1
M
X
M
X
aij aji akl alk amn anm Ao ::: ::At AM
Mt1
M
X
aij ajk akl alm amn ani ain anm aml alk akj aji Ao ::: ::At AM
Mt1
(4)
1105
Assigned value
0.045
0.135
0.255
0.335
0.410
0.500
0.590
0.665
0.745
0.865
0.955
M4
M5
M6
M7
M8
M9
0.3
0.4
0.5
x
0.6
0.7
0.8
M10 M11
1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
(x)
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.9
1.0
1106
Table 2 Relative importance of FMS selection attributes
Class description
Relative
importance (aij)
3.
0.045
0.135
4.
0.255
5.
0.335
0.410
0.500
0.590
0.665
0.745
0.865
0.955
5 Methodology
6.
5.3 Step 3
Take a final decision keeping in view the practical considerations. All possible constraints likely to be experienced
by the user are looked into during this stage. These include
constraints such as availability, management constraints,
political constraints, economical constraints, etc. However,
compromise may be made in favor of a flexible manufacturing system with a higher FMS-SI.
Now an example is considered to demonstrate and
validate the proposed procedure.
6 Example
5.1 Step 1
Identify the FMS selection attributes for the given
industrial application and short-list the flexible manufacturing systems on the basis of the identified attributes
satisfying the requirements. A quantitative or qualitative
value or its range may be assigned to each identified
attribute as a limiting value or threshold value for its
acceptance for the considered application. A flexible
manufacturing system with each of its attribute, meeting
the criterion, may be short-listed.
5.2 Step 2
1. After short-listing the flexible manufacturing systems,
find out the relative importance (aij) relations between
the attributes and normalize the values of attributes (Ai)
for different alternatives. Refer to Sect. 4 for details.
2. Develop the FMS selection attributes digraph considering the selection attributes identified and their
relative importance. The number of nodes must be
equal to the number of attributes considered in step 1
above. The magnitude of the edges and their directions
Sarkis [7] has presented an illustrative problem for evaluating flexible manufacturing systems for an industrial
application. The problem considering 8 attributes and 24
alternative flexible manufacturing systems is shown in
Table 3. Now to demonstrate and validate the proposed procedure of flexible manufacturing system selection through
digraph and matrix methods, various steps of the methodology, given in Sect. 5, are carried out as described below:
6.1 Step 1
In the present work, the attributes considered are the same
as those of Sarkis [7]: total cost (TC), work-in-process
(WIP), throughput time (TT), employees (EMP), space
requirements (SR), volume flexibility (VF), product-mix
flexibility (PF), and routing flexibility (RF).
6.2 Step 2
1. The quantitative values of the FMS selection attributes,
which are given in Table 3, are to be normalized. VF,
PF, and RF are beneficial attributes and higher values
1107
Table 3 Quantitative data
of attributes of the example
considered
Alternative FMS
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
TC
WIP
1.19
4.91
4.6
3.69
1.31
3.04
1.83
2.07
3.06
1.44
2.47
2.85
4.85
1.31
4.18
1.99
1.60
404
3.79
4.76
3.60
3.24
3.05
1.60
98
297
418
147
377
173
202
533
898
423
470
87
915
852
924
273
983
106
955
416
660
771
318
849
2 TC
6 0:41
6
6 0:41
6
6 0:225
6
6 0:335
6
6 0:335
6
4 0:335
0:255
WIP
0:59
0:5
0:335
0:41
0:41
0:41
0:335
TT
0:59
0:5
0:335
0:41
0:41
0:41
0:335
EMP
0:745
0:665
0:665
0:59
0:59
0:59
0:5
12.33
34.84
18.68
40.83
20.82
38.87
49.67
30.07
27.67
6.02
4.00
43.09
54.79
86.87
54.46
91.08
37.93
23.29
54.98
1.55
3.98
52.26
35.09
62.83
EMP
5
14
12
10
3
4
13
14
2
10
13
8
5
3
4
3
13
11
1
9
6
8
4
15
SR
5.3
1.1
6.3
3.8
9.8
1.6
4.3
8.8
3.9
5.4
5.3
2.4
2.4
0.5
6.0
2.5
8.8
2.9
9.4
1.5
3.9
1.6
9.2
7.3
VF
619
841
555
778
628
266
46
226
354
694
513
884
439
401
491
937
709
615
499
58
592
535
124
923
PF
RF
88
14
39
31
51
13
60
21
86
20
40
17
58
18
27
6
39
91
46
2
29
61
25
60
2
4
1
2
6
5
4
4
5
3
5
7
4
4
4
3
2
3
3
6
4
1
2
3
Attribute
TC
WIP
TT
B1 EMP
SR
VF
PF
RF
TT
SR
VF
0:665
0:665
0:59
0:59
0:59
0:59
0:41
0:41
0:5
0:5
0:5
0:5
0:41
0:41
PF
0:665
0:59
0:59
0:41
0:5
0:5
0:41
RF 3
0:745
0:665 7
7
0:665 7
7
7
0:5
7
0:59 7
7
0:59 7
7
0:59 5
1108
128.7054
117.8464
114.0216
109.6577
107.2269
100.4074
96.1469
94.4433
94.4421
94.0641
92.9924
90.5901
88.4792
88.4310
88.0370
86.9361
86.2746
83.5420
83.2910
80.9024
77.1785
74.2029
71.9071
69.7684
FMS
TC
WIP
TT
EMP
SR
VF
PF
RF
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
1
0.2424
0.2587
0.3225
0.9084
0.3915
0.6503
0.5749
0.3889
0.8264
0.4818
0.4175
0.2454
0.9084
0.2847
0.598
0.7438
0.2946
0.314
0.25
0.3306
0.3673
0.3902
0.7438
0.8878
0.2929
0.2081
0.5918
0.23077
0.5029
0.4307
0.1632
0.0969
0.2057
0.1851
1
0.0951
0.1021
0.0942
0.3187
0.0885
0.8208
0.0911
0.2091
0.1318
0.1128
0.2736
0.1025
0.1257
0.0445
0.083
0.03796
0.07444
0.0399
0.0312
0.0516
0.056
0.2575
0.3875
0.0359
0.02829
0.01784
0.0285
0.017
0.0409
0.0663
0.0282
1
0.3895
0.02966
0.0442
0.0247
0.2
0.0714
0.08333
0.1
0.333
0.25
0.0769
0.0714
0.5
0.1
0.0769
0.125
0.2
0.3333
0.25
0.3333
0.0769
0.0909
1
0.1111
0.1667
0.125
0.25
0.0667
0.0943
0.4545
0.07936
0.1316
0.051
0.3125
0.1163
0.0568
0.1282
0.0926
0.0943
0.2083
0.2083
1
0.0833
0.2
0.0568
0.1724
0.0532
0.3333
0.1282
0.3125
0.0544
0.0685
0.6606
0.8975
0.5923
0.8303
0.6702
0.2839
0.0491
0.2412
0.3778
0.7407
0.5475
0.9434
0.4685
0.428
0.524
1
0.7567
0.6564
0.5325
0.0619
0.6318
0.5964
0.1323
0.985
0.967
0.1538
0.4286
0.3406
0.5604
0.1429
0.6593
0.2308
0.9451
0.2198
0.4396
0.1868
0.6374
0.1978
0.2967
0.0659
0.4286
1
0.5055
0.022
0.3187
0.6703
0.2747
0.6593
0.2857
0.5714
0.1428
0.2857
0.8571
0.7143
0.5714
0.5714
0.7143
0.4286
0.7143
1
0.5714
0.5714
0.5714
0.4286
0.2857
0.4286
0.4286
0.8571
0.5714
0.1428
0.2857
0.4286
1109
7 Conclusions
1. A methodology based on digraph and matrix methods
is suggested which helps in selection of a suitable
flexible manufacturing system from among a large
number of available alternative flexible manufacturing
systems.
2. The proposed method identifies and considers flexible
manufacturing system selection attributes and their
interrelations for a given flexible manufacturing system selection problem.
3. The proposed method is a general method and can
consider any number of quantitative and qualitative
flexible manufacturing system selection attributes
simultaneously and offers a more objective and simple
flexible manufacturing system selection approach.
4. The proposed flexible manufacturing system selection
index evaluates and ranks flexible manufacturing
systems for a given flexible manufacturing system
selection problem.
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