Discussion on the Flexible Manufacturing and Operation Strategy Model for a Machine Tool Component Company in Taiwan

Recently, many manufacturing industries have been facing challenges such as rising material costs, small-volume and large-variety products, shortened production cycles, increased labor costs and longer after-sales service times, which is a very tough challenge for most small and medium-sized component manufacturing suppliers. In addition to the current hot topics in the manufacturing industry - Smart Manufacturing (Industry 4.0) and lean production management, if small and medium-sized enterprises are not able to adjust the pace of manufacturing timely and find a suitable production model, they will soon be overwhelmed by the torrent of the era of speed and accuracy. In the face of the dramatic changes in the industry structure, the company can deploy the global expansion of overseas customers in advance, and adjust to apply and implement a flexible manufacturing model system through the introduction of the Industrial Internet of Things and flexible manufacturing production management. In order to meet the market needs, the manufacturing industry is gradually oriented towards customized production and the rapid development of new products. To meet such stringent requirements, flexible manufacturing becomes one of the necessary ways for enterprises to consider their development models. Therefore, the efficiency and reliability of work can be improved through the Industrial Internet of Things that facilitates machine-to-machine communication, cloud-based big data and learning and imitations of smart robots. This study is an in-depth study of a company that is currently in the process of digital transformation, collecting relevant information and reviewing the analysis to find a suitable smart manufacturing solution for the company and to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the strategic development of the company. The findings can provide a significant reference for homotypic companies in the development of their business strategies.