Axiomatic design of flexible manufacturing systems

One of the major requirements of agile manufacturing strategies for the 21s t century is to introduce intelligent information technology into manufactu ring. The main contribution of this paper is an innovative new FMS design m ethodology. The operation-driven FMS design methodology is introduced, as t he concept of concurrent product and process development is being widely us ed to enhance the productivity and quality of manufacturing. The new FMS de sign theory is developed from axiomatic design theory established by Suh (1 990). The general design theory based on two design axioms and a set of the orems and corollaries is concretized for the FMS design. The proposed metho dology works well as an effective decision support system for FMS designers in determining the appropriate FMS configuration at the design stage. This is illustrated via a successful implementation exercise resulting in confi guring FMS in real manufacturing settings.