Design for agility: a scheduling perspective

Agility is the ability of a company to produce a variety of products in a s hort time and at a low cost. This demands that products and manufacturing s ystems be simple, robust, and flexible to allow for quick response to the c hanging market. Scheduling of manufacturing systems in a changing environme nt is complex. This paper attempts to simplify scheduling of manufacturing systems through appropriate design of products and manufacturing systems. A n attempt has been made to generate rules that allow to design products and systems for easy scheduling. Four design for agility rules are proposed in the paper. The first rule deals with decomposition of a manufacturing syst em. The rule simplifies the scheduling problem and reduces the total change over cost. The second rule is concerned with design of products with robust scheduling characteristics. Product designs with robust scheduling charact eristics can improve the response of a manufacturing system to the changes in the product demand and mix and reconfigurability of the system. The thir d rule results in a streamlined assembly line which has the type of product flow that simplifies scheduling. The fourth rule emphasizes the reduction of the number of stations in an assembly line. Examples are provided to dem onstrate the benefits from using these rules. The implemention of the four rules is also discussed. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved .