Production and Mix Flexibility

Production Flexibility

This is the range of part styles that might be produced on the systems. The range of part styles that might be produced by a manufacturing system at moderate expense and time is determined by the process envelope. It based on following factors:

• Machine flexibility of individual stations
• Range of machine flexibilities of all of stations in the system.

Mix Flexibility

 This is defined as the ability to modify the product mix while maintaining the similar total production quantity that is, generating the same parts only in different proportions. This is also known as process flexibility. Mix flexibility provides protection against market variability by accommodating alter in product mix because of the use of shared resources. Though, high mix variations might result in requirements for a greater number of tools, fixtures, and other resources. Mixed flexibility based on factors such as:

• Similarity of parts in the mix
• Machine flexibility
• Relative work content times of parts produced