Abstract
Manufacturing activities play a major role in stimulating economic affluence. Increasing manufacturing competitiveness demand greater focus on developing new and advanced manufacturing capabilities. Since early 21st century, Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS) philosophy has become one of the main pillars of competitiveness criterion for the manufacturing companies worldwide. Little research has investigated the impact of FMS on operational performance metrics. The following paper presents a discrete simulation study which investigates the contribution of certain FMS dimensions in supporting internal organizational competitiveness (i.e. cost, quality, productivity, etc). This study took place at one of the Big Three (Ford, Chrysler, GM) manufacturing plants in North America that produce two types of vehicles (Trucks and SUV’s). A model was developed aiming at emulating the actual manufacturing process within that assembly facility and then, it was altered through implementing specific FMS dimensions (labor, machine, and material handling) at bottleneck stations. Three different proposals were considered. The analyses reveal that the proposed implementation of the three types of flexibility will lead to 12% improvement in Jobs per hour (JPH), 12.6 % enhancement in quality-DRL (direct run loss) and 17% increase in Return on Investment (ROI).