Optimal sequencing of part families and configuration selection for process improvement in reconfigurable manufacturing system

Reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMS) are considered as next generation manufacturing systems that are capable of providing the functionality and capacity as and when required. Products are classified into several part families as per customer requirement and each of them are a set of similar products. In a shop floor, the manufacturers have to deal with varied number of orders for multiple part families and after completing the orders of a particular family, they need to change over to the orders of a different part family. Shifting from one part family to another may require the system's reconfiguration, which is a complicated method and requires tremendous cost and efforts. The complexity, effort and cost from changing one configuration to another depends on the existing initial configuration and the new configuration required for subsequent production of orders belonging to a different part family. There are different models available for process improvement. This paper focuses on determining optimal sequencing of part families formation and configuration selection for process improvement in RMS on the basis of minimum loss occurred for a given system configuration. The proposed methodology is explained and an example is given for illustration.