The applications of flexible manufacturing technologies in business process reengineering

Through radical redesign of business processes and systems, policies, and o rganizational structures, the business process reengineering (BPR) effort w as initiated in the manufacturing industry to seek performance breakthrough s. This paper describes a novel approach to the BPR, which applies flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs) design and analysis technologies, such as sim ulation, multicriteria decision support, and artificial intelligence (AI). These technologies are integrated to design and analyze specific FMS models related to the proposed technical and managerial changes in an industrial case. First, the literature is reviewed to obtain an understanding of the B PR concept and the role of FMS design and analysis in BPR. Second, a decisi on-making support system is developed to illustrate how the FMS design and analysis would affect BPR. Finally, a summary of the integrated approach pr actice in industry and conclusions are presented. The paper shows that the key to a successful BPR approach is the identification and analysis of spec ific proposed models. It also demonstrates that the integrated approach ena bles engineers to improve the efficiency of BPR.