Flexibility in manufacturing systems

Considerable interest is now being shown in the concept of flexible manufacturing systems. This paper reviews the early experience of a number of UK users and examines the range of choice now opening up for firms engaged in batch manufacturing operations. Although the potential benefits of flexible manufacturing (such as reduced lead times or inventory levels) are significant, achieving these in practice depends on successfully resolving a number of problem issues. In particular, the question of integration—both technological (hardware/software) and organisational—needs to be addressed. The paper discusses progress made in the firms studied in dealing with these issues and identifies a number of dimensions along which other organisations considering the implementation of flexible manufacturing systems will need to adapt.     

ON THE SENSITIVITY OF BRAND-CHOICE SIMULATIONS TO ATTRIBUTE IMPORTANCE WEIGHTS

This paper critically reviews the report by Green, DeSarbo, and Kedia “on the insensitivity of brand-choice simulations to attribute importance weights”. The review suggests that results from two of their four weight distortion conditions should be viewed with suspicion and that their procedure for selecting brand scores biased the sensitivity analysis and inflated individual-level hit rates. The most unfortunate problem is that their simulation-experimental design precludes a global test of the main research issue. Results are presented from an alternative simulation approach that has the power to detect the sensitivity of brand shares to a wide range of conditions that affect the shape of attribute weight distributions. The results suggest that conclusions of Green, DeSarbo, and Kedia apply only to a limited domain and would not obtain in many likely market situations. Extensions to nonadditive decision structures are suggested and several unresolved issues are outlined.     

AN INTEGRATED WORK SHIFT SCHEDULING SYSTEM

An integrated work shift scheduling system is developed and applied in the scheduling of 2600 telephone operators in 43 locations of the General Telephone Company of California. The system involves the forecasting of calls on a half-hourly basis, the conversion to operator requirements, the scheduling of tours by a heuristic algorithm, the assignment of operators to tours, and the operation of the system.