Quantifying the flexibility of a manufacturing system by applying the transfer function

Abstract

This paper discusses a method of estimating the flexibility of a manufacturing system. The proposed approach is motivated by the dynamic behaviour analogy between a mechanical and a manufacturing system. The main hypothesis is that the flexibility of a manufacturing system can be calculated in the same manner as the damping factor of a mechanical system. In order for the validity of the proposed method to be tested and discussed, a set of experiments has been designed and executed, initially for a simple production system. An industrial production system has also been studied using the same approach. The results prove that this method can be used for the estimation of a manufacturing system's flexibility.

Keywords:

• Flexibility
• Flexibility measures
• Manufacturing systems

Acknowledgements

This study was partially supported by the IMS RTD project LICOPRO/IST-2001-37603 and the RTD project X-CHANGE, both funded by the European Commission.