Assignment 1: Case Study 2 BUSI 3321:Operations Management Section: 201 Assignment 1: Case Study 2 Selection Of A Layout Configuration For Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems Using The AHP Done By: Latifa Al-Shammari  200900329 Bashayer Al-Nahdi 200700531 Fatima Al-Bagshi 200800928

Outline Introduction Summary of the Case Identifying and explaining the Techniques Productivity and competitiveness Product Design Forecasting Analysis and Recommendations Conclusion

Introduction Manufacturing organizations must provide sufficient flexibility to produce variety of products depending on consumers’ preferences, and to be a good competitive in the market. Changes in customer requirements force a need for having new designs of manufacturing systems. According to that manufacturing organizations started to use Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMS).

Summary Reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMSs): Designed to produce different product types in shortest time and lower cost, but without lowering the quality. The major characteristics of this system is called re-configurability: The ability of rearranging and/or changing manufacturing elements to adjust with the improved environmental and technological changes. First the article was talking about RMS which is system designed to…….

Summary (cont.) There are many other meanings of RMS according to different researchers, such as: Zhao who consider RMS as “a manufacturing system in which a variety of products required by customers are classified into families, each of which is a set of similar products that correspond to one configuration of the RMS”.

Summary (cont.) For preparing layout configuration for different types of manufacturing systems; various researchers used mathematical programs. some of those researchers: Cheng and Chen (1996): proposed a simple quadratic assignment formulation to minimize the total distance between machines within manufacturing cells. Bazargan-Lari (1999): discussed layout design problem and emphasized that programming was one of the solution methodologies for making decision for layout design. Also, the article showed that for preparing ………

Summary (cont.) Preparing RMS may require different layout configurations while switching from one product to the other. So there are some criteria’s, which can influence on choosing layout configurations, as: Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP): which developed by Thomas Saaty (1980). And it is developed to structure the criteria for the selection of the most appropriate layout for configuration stage. And the main goal is to select the most preferred layout configuration. There are some objectives for selecting layout configuration, which are re-configurability, cost, quality, and reliability.

Identifying the techniques Productivity and competitiveness Product design Forecasting After we read and summarize the case we found that this case study was including many efficient techniques; and after reading the case we select the techniques related to Operation Management course, which are: Each of these techniques will be explained in the next slides.

Productivity and Competitiveness

Productivity and competitiveness Effective product pricing. Improve product quality. Product differentiation. Flexibility to change. Time efficiency.

Product Design

Product Design Product design process is the method of creating new product/services to satisfy the customer.

Product design and development process Identifying needs and concept generation and development Production detail design/prototype production Testing and sampling analysis Low scale production Marketing and selling process Economic / competitor analysis and a large scale manufacturing process

Forecasting

The concept of forecasting Forecasting is: a planning tool that helps management in its attempts to cope with the uncertainty of the future, relying mainly on data from the past and present and analysis of trends.

Forecasting (Cont.) Forecasting starts with certain assumptions based on: The management’s experience The Knowledge The judgment

Forecasting (Cont.) The techniques that the company use: Trying to predict the new design that makes the customer satisfied Used the sensitivity analysis to highlight the configuration solutions with respect to layout re-configurability as the most important criterion Used other techniques such as exponential smoothing, moving averages, regression analysis, and trend projection.

Forecasting (Cont.) The problems that the company face: Measuring flexibility System configuration Cost estimation Layout configuration

Forecasting (Cont.) The effectiveness of forecasting: It helps management resolve the dilemma of more demanding customer requirements and greater shareholder expectations. Its a projection of future business in a manufacturing and distribution companies

Forecasting (Cont.) Suggestions for improvements: Measuring forecast accuracy Makes improvements to the specific forecast as well as to the demand planning process. Enables us to review and correct the individual product forecasts.

Analysis and Recommendations

Analysis The company has adjusted the production process to re-design the manufacturing layout to accommodate the customer requirements. The company uses the effective product pricing, to achieve the lower products cost by applying latest manufacturing technologies, smart utilization of resources. Proposing the classical layout models to minimize material handling cost for a single product system. Use the time efficiency in produce different product families in the shortest time and at the lowest cost without sacrificing quality. Using the knowledge-based system, for creating the AHP model that will lead to the selection of the best layout.

Recommendations lower products cost by applying latest manufacturing technologies, smart utilization of resources. Improve the productivity by reducing the cost and its ability to bend the system to suit the customers’ needs. Make little different against the competitors' products by offering the extra feature in the product definitely Start focusing on marketing and selling process in order to build the brand reputation in the market place. Measure, review and correct the forecast accuracy if we wish to improve and to overcome with the problems that the company might face.

Conclusion Summarized the case study Identify the techniques related to our OM class Show the relation between these techniques and the case study Explain our recommendations In conclusion, we summarized the case study which was about Reconfigurable Manufacturing systems and we explain the meaning of this system and the importance of it for the manufacturing organizations We identify the techniques related to our OM class, which were Productivity and competitiveness, product design, forecasting

References Business Dictionary.com. (N.D). Sensitivity Analysis. Retrieved Nov 1, 2012. From: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/sensitivity-analysis.html   Bushman, Melissa. (Apr 12, 2007). Why is Forecasting Important to an Organization?. Yahoo Voices. Retrieved Nov 1, 2012. From: http://voices.yahoo.com/why-forecasting-important-organization-280514.html Forecasting. (N.D). Forecasting. Wikipedia. Retrieved Nov 1, 2012. From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forecasting Roozenburg , N. F. M., & Ekels , J. Product Design and Development  Buffa , S. Modern Production/Operation Management . (8th ed.) Perkins , G. Turning Corporate Pain to Gain 

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