Reconfigurable Manufacturing on Multiple Levels: Literature Review and Research Directions

Abstract

Reconfigurable manufacturing has been widely labelled the manufacturing paradigm of the future, due to its ability to rapidly and costefficiently respond to changing market conditions. Manufacturing reconfigurability can be dealt with at various levels of the factory, and includes multiple design and operational issues related to both physical and logical reconfigurations. The purpose of this paper is to review state-of-the-art literature on reconfigurable manufacturing and provide an overview of the current body of research, by assessing which structuring levels of the factory and corresponding research issues that are dealt with. Conclusively, currently unexplored areas and interesting issues that could be addressed in future research are identified.

A framework to manage reconfigurability in manufacturing

“…The contributions are too exiguous, impeding a generalisation. Nevertheless, a relevant property is remarked by some authors: reconfigurability at lower production levels positively influences reconfigurability at upper production levels Bruccoleri, Nigro and Perrone, 2005;Andersen, Brunoe and Nielsen, 2015).…”

“…For some authors reconfigurability at lower levels is principally obtained through physical/hard activities, while at upper levels it is mainly obtained through soft activities (Bi et al, 2008a;Ayman, Youssef and ElMaraghy, 2006;Andersen, Brunoe and Nielsen, 2015). Overall, authors provided insights on the relationship between reconfigurability and production levels; however, a consolidated and systematic interpretation of the six core characteristics of reconfigurability in accordance with these production levels seems missing.…”

A Literature-Based Analysis of the Cyber-Physical Systems Under the Lens of Reconfigurability

“…As stressed in reconfigurability-related literature, the capability to reconfigure should be referred to different production levels. More precisely, [9] identified six levels (these were then applied by [10]). However, in real cases, it is often not easy to identify clearly this high number of levels, also because their boundaries are sometimes faded.…”

A Method Towards Modelling and Analysis of Semantically-Enriched Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems

“…Though there is a substantial amount of research work available in the domain of reconfigurable systems, especially at system level [3], systems with full level of reconfigurability are still non-existent [4]. In particular, in the domain of developing Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS), just limited research that incorporates its true dynamic, rapid nature and accurate decision making in complex systems is available.…”