Reconfiguration of a job shop to respond to product mix changes based on a virtual production system concept

K. C. Ko, P. J. Egbelu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Driven by intense global competition, governments, industry and academia in recent years have invested a considerable amount of resources to make production systems more efficient. However, in most cases, once a production system type is adopted for a shop, the operation mode of the shop remains the same over time. In today's environment where changes in product mix, production batch sizes and technology are common, what is required is a procedure that allows a shop to adapt or reconfigure its mode of operation based on the production instance at hand to achieve maximum efficiency. In the present paper, the application of a virtual production system is proposed to provide such flexibility and adaptability in production. A virtual production system has the capability of switching from one operation mode to another without actual physical reconfiguration of the shop and does this to maximize its operational efficiency. Such a virtual production system is examined. Experimental results for a set of example problems show that virtual production systems are superior to traditional production systems.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)4641-4672
Number of pages32
JournalInternational Journal of Production Research
Volume42
Issue number22
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 15 2004
Externally publishedYes

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Strategy and Management
  • Management Science and Operations Research
  • Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

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