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Justifying new manufacturing technology is usually very difficult since the most important benefits are often strategic and difficult to quantify. Traditional capital budgeting procedures that rely on return measures based on direct cost savings and incremental future cash flows do not normally capture the strategic benefits of higher quality, faster responses to wider ranges of customer needs, and the options for future growth made available by flexible manufacturing technology. Adding to these limitations is the difficulty of using traditional cost accounting systems to generate the information necessary for justifying new manufacturing investments. This paper reviews these problems and recommends procedures useful for assessing investments in flexible manufacturing technology.

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.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the alignment between current product and manufacturing systems and how it could be achieved.

Case study research method was chosen for the collection and analysis of empirical data. The data was of qualitative nature and was collected using research techniques such as observations through video recordings of processes, documents and open and semi-structured interviews.

The variation of outer side sub-element of the exterior wall element was found to not be aligned with its corresponding assembly. A hybrid assembly of outer side sub-elements characterised by flexibility and reconfigurability can be developed.

The study is limited to the exterior wall element and corresponding manufacturing system.

The presented approach was formulated with the aim to be used both for the analysis of existing products and manufacturing systems as well as for the design of new manufacturing systems.

So far, this is the first study in the context of timber house building where the alignment between product and manufacturing systems was investigated by considering product variety and flexibility of manufacturing systems.

Against a background of a customization imperative embraced by manufacturing firms in industrialised nations and the concomitant call for more balanced performance measurement systems (PMS), this study seeks to examine the mediating role of both non‐financial and financial performance measures in the relationship between a firm's strategic orientation of flexible manufacturing and organisational performance.

A path‐analytical model is adopted using questionnaire data from 84 Australian manufacturing firms.

The results indicate that, first, firms emphasising a flexible manufacturing strategy utilise non‐financial as well as financial performance measures; second, these performance measures are associated with higher organisational performance; and third, there is a positive association between a firm's strategic emphasis on flexible manufacturing and organisation performance via non‐financial and financial performance measures.

While there is agreement on the beneficial role of non‐financial performance measures in supporting strategic priorities associated with customization strategies, equivocal research results have emerged on the role of financial performance measures in this context. The study underscores the importance of both non‐financial and financial performance measures in this context.

The paper reinstates the value of financial performance measures for firms pursuing customization type strategies and adds to one's knowledge of PMSs by exploring the intervening role of such systems in linking flexible manufacturing strategy to organisation performance.

A flexible manufacturing system (FMS) helps improve the system’s performance, thus increasing its overall competitiveness. FMS is an essential component of Industry 4.0 (I4.0), which has revolutionized the way firms manufacture their products. This study aims to investigate the diverse focus of the research being published over the years and the direction of scholarly work in applying FMSs in business and management.

A total of 1,096 bibliometric data were extracted from the Scopus database from the years 2001 to 2021. A systematic review and bibliometric analysis were performed on the data and related articles for performance measurement and scientific mapping on the FMS themes.

Based on co-keyword, the study reveals four major themes in the FMS field: mathematical models and quantitative techniques, scheduling and optimization techniques, cellular manufacturing and decision-making in FMSs. Based on bibliometric coupling on 2018–2021 bibliometric data, four themes emerged for future research: scheduling problems in FMS, manufacturing cell formation problem, interplay of FMS with other latest technologies and I4.0 and FMS.

The originality lies in answering the following research questions: What are the most highlighting themes in FMS, and how have they evolved over the past 20 years (2001–2021)? What topics have been at the forefront of research in FMS in the past five years (2016–2021)? What are the promising avenues of research in FMS?

Flexible manufacturing systems are being implemented at a rapidly increasing rate. A study of management issues arising from the implementation of flexible manufacturing systems was undertaken between June 1985 and March 1986. This article is based on the study of twelve systems in the UK and is primarily concerned with flexibility and its achievement. The survey showed that management objectives were inconsistent and incongruent. Such inconsistencies and incongruencies have influenced the flexibility of systems. Emergent rather than deliberate strategies for flexible manufacturing system development have been observed. A flexibility audit in conjunction with the setting of long‐term and shorter‐term company objectives is recommended for future applications.

A conceptual framework for structuring a flexible manufacturing system (FMS) environment called an open automation architecture (OAA) is proposed. The framework is based on the open‐systems approach to information system development. OAA proposes partitioning of the manufacturing environment into autonomous manufacturing entities called logical manufacturing shops, that communicate and cooperate during the manufacturing of products. The partitioning in OAA is not based on the traditional structuring of machines on the shop floor. Each logical manufacturing shop is structured to provide for data and process integration within its processing domain, supported by a stable grouping of machines on the shop floor. The framework is illustrated with a manufacturing case and a discussion of information system support in the form of expert systems.

The purpose of this paper is to test the mediating role of three types of innovation (product, process, and organizational) in the relationship between manufacturing flexibility and performance.

Building on the resource‐based view, the paper examines the indirect effects of manufacturing flexibility on organizational performance considering product, process, and organizational innovation as mediating variables. A sample of 159 Spanish firms is taken to test the proposed theoretical model through structural equations modeling using the partial least squares approach.

The effect on organizational performance of adopting a flexible productive system is mediated by incorporating product, process, and organizational innovation. This paper calls for caution in defending flexible manufacturing systems as universally efficient solutions, and argues that their productivity is linked to the complementary introduction of organizational and technological innovations.

Firms that pursue manufacturing flexibility should develop innovation capabilities to obtain an improvement in organizational performance. Therefore, managers should bear in mind that the mere fact of adopting a flexible manufacturing system will not guarantee improvements in firm performance. If manufacturing flexibility is to help improve company performance, managers should use this flexibility to generate organizational capabilities based on product, process, and organizational innovations, since these are capabilities that can create competitive advantages.

Operations management literature has not reached a consensus about the effect of manufacturing flexibility on organizational performance. This paper helps both academics and managers to gain a better understanding of this question by considering the mediating effect of three types of innovation (product, process, and organizational) in this relationship.

This article addresses the lack of formal design guidance that supports flexibility within the architectural and engineered systems of manufacturing facilities through the development of a taxonomy and associated terminology.

This research performed a comparative analysis of 15 manufacturing facilities located both within the United States (73 percent of cases) and internationally (27 percent of cases). These case studies provided details on how and where flexibility was incorporated into the design of a manufacturing facility. Specific consideration was given to the primary design features that enabled a decoupling of the facility from the manufacturing process. These design features were then clustered to identify main design strategies that enable flexibility.

By grouping the design features together and creating a common vocabulary, three coherent design approaches for flexible facilities were identified, each having a different potential for responding to short-term and long-term changes. These include general purpose, scalable, and dedicated facilities.

By delineating three high-level strategies for early flexible facility design, this research synthesizes a conceptual understanding of flexibility with practical and implementable designs. This synthesis provides an incremental advance to a complex challenge for researchers. It also provides decision support to design teams by aiding in project definition, when flexibility is desirable. This research is primarily limited by the number of cases reviewed. With more cases, additional facility design strategies may be identified.

The findings in this research allow for a basic understanding of how a flexible facility can be designed with only limited or vague information about the product and manufacturing processes contained within. The development of terminology associated with each facility design strategy provides standardization for the discussion and implementation of flexibility early in the design process. In doing so, flexible designs become easier to create and more efficient to implement.

This research provides the first synthesized approach for considering flexible facility design strategies within the manufacturing sector.

Examines research work aimed at exploring and developing a new, object‐oriented system design and operation concept, and new system software and hardware design concepts which could be used to design and build an open, flexible and reconfigurable material handling system in a Computer Integrated Manufacturing [CIM] environment that could cope with changes imposed by the market on today’s manufacturing industries. Looks at the design of a reconfigurable and flexible conveyor system and outlines the benefits of using a 3‐D CIM reference model when developing CIM hardware and software control. Concludes that the proposed new conveyor system helps resolves the need for an assembly system which can achieve rapid and flexible responses to meet the challenge set by changing customer requirements.