Strategic evaluation of flexible assembly systems on the basis of hard andsoft decision criteria

Justifying investments in Advanced Manufacturing Technology has proved to b e a rather complex issue for production management. Although they are aware of the strategic character of this technology, practitioners often seem to neglect that aspect in their decision process because of inappropriate man agement support methods. On the one hand, conventional approaches to justif ication of investment focus exclusively on hard decision criteria such as c osts or paybacks. On the other hand, qualitative methods, such as scoring m odels, emphasize soft investment variables while lacking precise quantifica tion of hard investment factors. Some methodical progress has been made by merging these traditional approaches into multi-perspective or multi-layer frameworks in order to strengthen the strategic dimension of investment dec ision processes. Against this background an integrated, system dynamics app roach to evaluating complex investments in Flexible Manufacturing Systems h as been developed and is presented in this article. Finally, the findings a re illustrated by an investment case study. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd .