Prioritising the types of manufacturing flexibility in an uncertain environment

Abstract

Researchers have stressed that manufacturing system flexibility research requires a quantitative model allowing a manufacturing system to prioritize its flexibility dimension and promote the performance of the manufacturing system. A quantification model presented in the present research is demonstrated to assess the degree of environmental uncertainty and illustrates a method for delivering the requirement of flexibility improvement for the manufacturing system so that the company is able to prioritize the types of manufacturing flexibility which a manufacturing system requires in an uncertain environment. Quantitative approaches including quality function deployment (QFD), analytical hierarchy process (AHP), and grey relational analysis (GRA) have been employed to find a means for improving the flexibility of a manufacturing system to cope with environmental uncertainty. QFD is the focal approach for the deployment of the integrated structure of the research. AHP is applied to explore the relative weighted importance of environmental uncertainty factors, while GRA is used to find out the relationships between manufacturing flexibility and environmental uncertainty. A combination of these approaches reveals a useful tool for managers to prioritize the types of flexibility which a manufacturing system requires for coping with an uncertain environment. In particular, the present research studied the manufacturing flexibility requirements of a food company in Taiwan.

Keywords:

• environmental uncertainty
• manufacturing flexibility
• quality function deployment
• analytic hierarchy process
• grey relational analysis

Acknowledgement

This research is supported by the National Formosa University, Taiwan, ROC under Project no. EN98C-C1001. The author would like to thank Mr. C. F. Cheng for providing data and other necessary information.