Reconfigurability consideration and scheduling of products in a manufacturing industry

Reconfigurable manufacturing system is a new type of manufacturing system which can change its capacity and functionality very easily and quickly whenever required. RMS (reconfigurable manufacturing system) has capacity and functionality exactly what is required. RMS is adjustable to the fluctuating demands and it can be easily upgraded with new process technology. Reconfigurability of a manufacturing system is measured in terms of cost, effort and time. It is the ability of a manufacturing system to be reconfigured quickly with low reconfiguration effort at low cost. In the present work, reconfigurability has been considered in Continental Automotive Components Pvt. Ltd. on the basis of RMS principles. A modified reconfigurable layout has been proposed for an assembly line and scheduling of the products has been done for the criteria reconfiguration effort, profit over cost and due date. Scheduling of the products has been done using the integrated approach of Shannon entropy and RIM (Reference Ideal Method). R program has been written for scheduling. Sensitivity analysis has been conducted for the problem.