Design Requirements for Designing Responsive Modular Manufacturing Systems

Customers demand the newest technologies, newest designs, the ability to customise, high quality, and all this at a low cost. These are trends which challenge the traditional way of operating manufacturing companies, especially in regard to product development and manufacturing. Research and industrial work are conducted in this area and has resulted in a wide span of theories, models, and methods. Manufacturing companies are, regardless hereon, still facing these challenges, especially regarding their manufacturing systems. Several theories state that modular manufacturing concepts possess the needed flexibility and responsiveness, but such systems are not yet fully achieved. From related theory it is known that achieving modular benefits depend on the modular architecture; a modular architecture which must be developed according to the customer needs. This makes production needs a design requirement in order to achieve responsiveness and other benefits of modular manufacturing systems (MMS). Due to the complex and interrelated nature of a
production system and its surroundings these production needs are complex to identify. This paper presents an analysis framework for identification of production needs related to a given marked situation. Furthermore, based on this framework this paper performs an analysis of the general production implication of the new dynamics marked conditions.