Development of an approach to evaluate the effectiveness of a Reconfigurable Manufacturing System

Abstract

In this thesis a discrete event simulation model was developed, making it possible to evaluate the effectiveness of an RMS by analyzing the utilization and agility of the system. Additionally, the RMS was compared to a flexible and dedicated manufacturing system by implementing these paradigms in the simulation. A case study was conducted, in which the RMS was the most effective alternative in most scenarios. This thesis presents a new hypothesis to choose between the production paradigms. It is proposed that it’s possible to calculate limits where two or three production paradigms have the same effectiveness. These limits create a volume for each production paradigm, in which these are the best alternative and when another alternative is better.