Use of the manufacturing system design decomposition for comparative analysis and effective design of production systems

Abstract

The focus of this paper is on the use of the Manufacturing System Design Decomposition (MSDD) to make effective cost and production system design decisions. A comparative study is conducted to illustrate how and why the total cost is reduced when the functional requirements defined by the MSDD are achieved. The ultimate goal of this research was to advance manufacturing and production system development to being guided by engineering science and design rather than the common practice of duplicating another person’s or entity’s notion of the best physical implementation.

Keywords:

• cellular manufacture
• manufacturing systems engineering
• cost analysis
• lean manufacturing
• manufacturing system design decomposition
• production engineering

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the IPFW Center of Excellence in Systems Engineering, Reykjavik University Science and Engineering Department, RWTH Aachen and the Production System Design Lab, MIT. Special thanks go to Yong Suk Kim, Martin Weidemann and Henning Carl for their research, analysis and initial findings and contributions to this work. Thanks go to Mohammad Umair for his editorial comments and proofreading. The co-authorship by Zhuming Bi was partially supported by the Program of Foshan Innovation Team of Science and Technology (Grant No. 2015IT100072).

Notes

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

1 At a first order, at least.

2 The costs are multiplied by a constant factor to ensure confidentiality.

3 Material, labour and overhead costs.