Theory of constraints in a service application: The Swine Graphics case

Being affected from high technology, modern manufacturing systems have become more complex which means that performance factors of both individuals and manufacturing systems have become more critical due to the overloading of cognitive and decision-making tasks. In addition to this development, the classical performance measurement systems are insufficient to measure cognitive performance and the new measurement systems are needed. But converting the abstract factors of cognition to quantitative models is very difficult and complicated. In this paper, developing quantitative models for determination of cognitive performance factors is studied using the combination of cognitive mapping technique and the analytical hierarchy process in fuzzy theory to identify these factors, express and classify them quantitatively. The pairwise comparison matrices are constructed from cognitive maps, converted to fuzzy numbers using a scale, and the subjectiveness of decision-makers is prevented. Also, more accurate weights are obtained and the monitoring levels of performance factors are suggested. An example in Flexible Manufacturing Systems is provided throughout the paper in order to explain the concepts and discussion.