Scalability planning for reconfigurable manufacturing systems

Scalability is a key characteristic of reconfigurable manufacturing systems, which allows system throughput capacity to be rapidly and cost-effectively adjusted to abrupt changes in market demand. This paper presents a scalability planning methodology for reconfigurable manufacturing systems that can incrementally scale the system capacity by reconfiguring an existing system. An optimization algorithm based on Genetic Algorithm is developed to determine the most economical way to reconfigure an existing system. Adding or removing machines to match the new throughput requirements and concurrently rebalancing the system for each configuration, accomplishes the system reconfiguration. The proposed approach is validated through a case study of a CNC-based automotive cylinder head machining system.