A model for evaluating a design change and the distributed manufacturing operations in a collaborative manufacturing environment

The purpose of a design change is to modify a portion of a product for certain improvement purposes such as adding values or reducing costs. A design change of one component may cause changes of the related components and the associated manufacturing operations that are distributed at different plants. In a collaborative manufacturing environment, the manufacturing operations distributed at the multiple plants need to be rearranged for producing the changed product. In this research, the effect of a design change is analyzed by evaluating the affected components and the distributed manufacturing operations from a cost-and-value perspective. A mathematical programming model is presented to evaluate the changed components by distributing the associated manufacturing operations with an objective of minimizing the total manufacturing cost. The changed total manufacturing cost is compared with the gained value to determine the worth value of the design change case. The presented model is useful for analyzing the effect of a design change case in a collaborative manufacturing environment. Implementation and test result of an example product are presented and discussed. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.