Types of Flexibility

The different kinds of flexibility that are exhibited by manufacturing systems are illustrated below:

• Machine Flexibility
• Production Flexibility
• Mix Flexibility
• Product Flexibility
• Routing  Flexibility
• Volume Flexibility
• Expansion Flexibility

Machine Flexibility

This is the capability to adapt a given machine in the system to a broad range of production operations and part styles. The larger the range of operations & part styles, the greater shall be the machine flexibility. The several factors on which machine flexibility depends are following:

• Setup or changeover time
• Ease along which part-programs can be downloaded to machines
• Skill and versatility of workers in the systems
• Tool storage capacity of machines