Facilitating Manufacturing System Development: Mapping Changeability Capabilities in Two Industrial Cases

In today’s unpredictable markets, knowing where to focus development resources in manufacturing systems is critical for manufacturers. However, the effort required to completely assess a manufacturing system’s ability to accommodate changes i.e., its changeability, is a resource intensive task whose outcome is not well understood in industry. This leads to companies being hesitant in applying extensive analysis methods. Therefore, this study presents the findings from applying an adapted and practitioner-oriented method for preliminary assessment of a manufacturing system’s changeability, taking product and process characteristics as inputs. The method was applied in two manufacturing companies (Case A and Case B) which differ in scope and motivation. Focusing on assessing their current changeability, Case A found that the method provided a practical approach to map existing process capabilities while Case B found that no additional changeability was needed to accommodate planned product introductions. While the method proved to be versatile for different scopes and motivations, issues of capacity and scalability are not considered in the method. Furthermore, defining complete equipment capabilities is a challenge, especially for larger more complex systems, presenting the need for an efficient method to achieve this.