Hello to all.
I've heard that there are ways to measure equipment flexibility.
When I say equipment i refer to equipment in a flexible manufacturing sistem(FMS).
I havent been able to find any documentation.
Anyone has any idea how it's done?
Thanks

Hello to all.
I've heard that there are ways to measure equipment flexibility.
When I say equipment i refer to equipment in a flexible manufacturing sistem(FMS).
I havent been able to find any documentation.
Anyone has any idea how it's done?
Thanks

In order to measure flexibility in a 'Flexible Manufacturing System', it is important to identify key metrics, that are relevant to your company.

Reduction in 'change over time' is a good way to measure flexibility, since equipment reconfigurability is implied there in.

Another critical measure of flexibility is the number of product-types the FMS can produce, with minimal 'change over' effort. Here it is important to record correct 'change over time', which is generally mis-calculated. Say, the change over time for a component is 5 mnts, but the duration between last-good-part to first-good-part is 15 mnts, then the effective 'change over time' would be 15 mnts in stead of 5 mnts.!!

Your question is about measuring the 'equipment flexibility'. IMO equipment flexibility alone is not sufficient. Other basic flexibilities like material handling flexibility and operation flexibility should also be considered to arrive at approx. measurement of flexibility.

Umang :D

Hello to all.
I've heard that there are ways to measure equipment flexibility.
When I say equipment i refer to equipment in a flexible manufacturing sistem(FMS).
I havent been able to find any documentation.
Anyone has any idea how it's done?
Thanks

This magazine (http://www.springer.com/engineering/production+eng/journal/10696) has some great articles on line, but you need to be a subscriber to have access to them.

Here is an abstract (http://www.springerlink.com/content/w335655p92001q10/) of such an article.

Stijloor.