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Many of the new pressures from today's manufacturing environment are turning manufacturing managers' attention to the virtues of developing a flexible manufacturing function. Flexibility, however, has different meanings for different managers and several perfectly legitimate alternative paths exist towards flexible manufacturing. How managers in ten companies view manufacturing flexibility in terms of how they see the contribution of manufacturing flexibility to overall company performance; what types of flexibility they regard as important; and what their desired degree of flexibility is. The results of the investigations in these ten companies are summarised in the form of ten empirical “observations”. Based on these “observations” a check‐list of prescriptions is presented and a hierarchical framework developed into which the various issues raised by the “observations” can be incorporated.

Flexibility is a fundamental performance objective for manufacturing operations, allowing them to respond to changing requirements in uncertain and competitive global markets. Additive manufacturing machines are often described as “flexible,” but there is no detailed understanding of such flexibility in an operations management context. The purpose of this paper is to examine flexibility from a manufacturing systems perspective, demonstrating the different competencies that can be achieved and the factors that can inhibit these in commercial practice.

This study extends existing flexibility theory in the context of an industrial additive manufacturing system through an investigation of 12 case studies, covering a range of sectors, product volumes, and technologies. Drawing upon multiple sources, this research takes a manufacturing systems perspective that recognizes the multitude of different resources that, together with individual industrial additive manufacturing machines, contribute to the satisfaction of demand.

The results show that the manufacturing system can achieve seven distinct internal flexibility competencies. This ability was shown to enable six out of seven external flexibility capabilities identified in the literature. Through a categorical assessment the extent to which each competency can be achieved is identified, supported by a detailed explanation of the enablers and inhibitors of flexibility for industrial additive manufacturing systems.

Additive manufacturing is widely expected to make an important contribution to future manufacturing, yet relevant management research is scant and the flexibility term is often ambiguously used. This research contributes the first detailed examination of flexibility for industrial additive manufacturing systems.

Develops a framework for manufacturing flexibility which illustrates how to obtain consistency from manufacturing strategy to the resource characteristics in the production system. Provides guidance on how to analyse and develop manufacturing flexibility in a corporate decision‐making context. Uses the well‐known input‐transformation‐output (ITO) model as a starting point for building the frame‐work. Makes a clear distinction between internal and external factors impinging on the company, connecting the market demand for flexibility, the characteristics of the production system and the flexibility of the suppliers. Pursues the connection from the strategic level to the individual resource characteristics in the production system.

We use the methodology from quality function deployment (QFD) for linking manufacturing flexibility to market requirements. This approach creates a framework for modelling the deployment of the need for flexibility from the customers’ viewpoints into manufacturing flexibility at various hierarchical levels. We present an application of the methodology in a real case study at a firm where a manufacturing system was being redesigned for the manufacture of a new and wider range of products than previously, based on a new product platform. Based on the case study we discuss the benefits and limitations of using the QFD approach to deploy manufacturing flexibility. The paper also presents a literature review of the manufacturing flexibility framework arena.

Flexibility continues to be key to the competitiveness of manufacturing firms. However, both in academia and industry, there still exists a lack of understanding regarding the fundamental nature of flexibility. This lack of understanding has often led to overly optimistic expectations regarding the direct transformation of technological flexibility into manufacturing flexibility. A theoretical model of the firm, based on cybernetics, is proposed in this paper.

The model relates flexibility to the cybernetic concept of variety and examines a dynamic system in terms of its task structure.

The model proves useful both in dispelling some of the misconceptions regarding flexibility, and in providing practical insights into issues of designing flexible manufacturing organizations.

The paper presents a means by which variety can be measured.

The conceptual model clarifies certain aspects of system flexibility. The first implication is that the flexibility required at a node is not fixed, but dependent on its connection with other nodes. The degree to which the interconnected nodes are effective regulators determines the variety impinging upon the target node. The second implication is that variety reduction is often a preferred solution over increased variety handling. The third implication is that the seemingly peculiar finding that relatively inflexible nodes in combination can be quite flexible, is easily explained using this theoretical model of the firm. System flexibility depends more on each node possessing requisite variety than on each possessing an enormous number of responses.

Examines two differing manufacturing operations and characterizes their manufacturing planning and control (MPC) systems. The primary concern of this categorization analysis is to examine the similarities and differences between the flexibilities inherent in each operation′s MPC system. One company has a system which is primarily a push‐based system, the other largely a pull‐based system. Examines different categories of flexibility in terms of both range flexibility (how far the system can cope with the change) and response flexibility (how fast the system can cope with change). The major conclusion is that pull‐based systems have flexibility characteristics which are characterized by relatively clearly thought‐out discontinuities in their range response curves.

In the complex environment of manufacturing system, it is proper to design a production system which meets the market requirements in the most economical and competitive manner. Flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is one of the options to meet the uncertainty in demand and high variety of products. This paper aims to review the definition, classification, and measurement of manufacturing flexibility concerned with manufacturing flexibility management.

The selection process consists of the synthesis and critical evaluation of the concepts put forward in the extant literature. As a consequence of this process, three primary flexibility dimensions are identified: volume, variety and machine. Simulation approach is used to study the behavior of FMS under different demand scenarios and levels of flexibility.

Four hypotheses are tested in five different flexibility levels. The following conclusions are obtained from the study. For any flexibility level, as the traffic density (TD) increases, the system utilization increases; as the TD increases, the throughput time increases; and as the number of part type increase, the system utilization decreases. A comparison between five flexibility levels showed that flexibility level 4 is best in terms of system utilization and throughput time. Flexibility level 2 perform second best, better than flexibility level 3 and flexibility level 5 which is not in line with initial assumption. Lastly, from the above results it is concluded that partial flexibility is better as compare to no flexibility and total flexibility.

It is felt that the contribution of the paper lies in demonstrating the usefulness of simulation technique in quantifying the aspects related to FMS. The effect that a specific design variable has on a specific system level flexibility type can change with the level of part processing flexibility present and flexibility trade‐off in manufacturing systems is not inevitable. This would help the planners of FMS to think and design FMS in a holistic manner.

Flexibility is widely recognized, in research literature and in more popular publications, as being of crucial importance in manufacturing. However, there is evidence of confusion among the numerous definitions of flexibility and it is arguable that, even now, the concept is not well understood. Furthermore, there is no simple approach for the systematic incorporation of flexibility level by level within the hierarchy of a conventional manufacturing system. Introduces a unifying and simple set of concepts for flexibility from a management perspective. The purpose of this “capability and capacity” approach is to interpret and integrate various types of flexibility throughout the manufacturing system. Use of this approach leads to four important principles for the integration of a system’s overall flexibility. Analyses flexibility types within manufacturing using the proposed approach.

PurposeThe issue of manufacturing flexibility has been widely discussed in the literature. One major area of focus has been the development of taxonomies for flexibility. This paper aims to review the contributions in this area and to propose a new classification and a framework for analysing flexibility in manufacturing companies.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopts a case study methodology approach. The framework proposed is used to analyse the implementation of flexibility in four UK manufacturing plants in four major industrial sectors: electronics, process, household and general goods and food.FindingsFrom the empirical analysis, various enablers of flexibility are identified. These are classified into three broad sources of flexibility namely fundamental enablers, indirect enablers and generic enablers as well as flexibility avoidance strategies referred to as flexibility evaders.Practical implicationsThe implication is that a mix of flexibility solutions rather than a single solution may be the most appropriate way for delivering flexibility in an organisation. However, the drivers of the need for flexibility have to be correctly identified in order to determine the best solutions for delivering system flexibility.Originality/valueThe development of a refined framework for analysing manufacturing flexibility as well as the identification of various enablers of strategic flexibility are the major contributions of this paper.

The concept of the flexibility of manufacturing systems is topical and important for three reasons. First, the instability and unpredictability of the environment, in which manufacturing companies operate, has forced many companies to reorganise their production, if only to reduce the overall scale of their operations. Second, developments such as flexible manufacturing systems and robotics, mean that flexibility is being explicitly promoted as a desirable attribute of production equipment. Third, the relatively recent interest in the nature of production management objectives has widened the scope of production aims beyond cost and productivity issues, to include the flexibility of production systems.