A rule-based fuzzy-logic approach for the measurement of manufacturing flexibility

Manufacturing flexibility is a difficult to quantify concept that defies universal definition. This paper presents a novel fuzzy-logic approach for measuring manufacturing flexibility that exploits linguistic variables for quantifying pertinent factors affecting commonly utilized flexibility types. Towards this end, we identify and measure the contribution of specified state variables towards the assumed flexibility types in order to compute an overall flexibility index for a generic manufacturing system. The suggested framework provides a convenient end user approach amenable to software implementation that is exemplified through the development of a prototypical software tool called "Flexibility Evaluator".