Design of Next Generation Factory Layouts

这项拨款为工厂布局设计工具的开发提供资金，这些工厂要么在高度不稳定的环境中运行，要么生产多种产品。对于这些工厂来说，能够快速重新配置资源以满足不断变化的需求至关重要。因此，本研究的重点是确定高度灵活、模块化和可重构的布局配置。由于柔性工厂的性能标准与传统工厂的性能标准不同（例如，范围比规模更重要，响应性比成本更重要，可重构性比效率更重要），用于评估布局的现有性能指标不能很好地反映这些优先级。因此，这项研究将为布局设计制定新的评估标准，明确考虑灵活性和响应性。由于工厂的运营绩效（例如，生产多种产品的能力，小批量生产产品，为客户提供较短的交货时间，或频繁推出新产品）可以直接受到布局的影响，本研究还将开发分析模型，以便更好地理解布局配置与运营绩效之间的关系。如果成功，这项研究将确定更适合敏捷工厂新需求的新布局配置。这些布局将是灵活的，模块化的，更容易重新配置。灵活性、模块化和可重构性将节省工厂在每次操作需求改变或引入新产品时重新设计布局的需要。新的设计工具将为配置和管理这些新布局提供系统和有效的方法。能够在设计布局时考虑到敏捷性的操作需求（例如，更多的品种，更短的上市时间和更短的制造周期）将意味着更大的竞争优势。

This grant provides funding for the development of design tools for layouts of factories that either operate in highly volatile environments or produce a large variety of products. For these factories, being able to quickly reconfigure resources to meet changing needs is critical. Therefore, a focus of this research is on identifying layout configurations that are highly flexible, modular and reconfigurable. Because the performance criteria of the flexible factory are different from those of the traditional factory (for example, scope is more important than scale, responsiveness is more important than cost, and reconfigurability is more important than efficiency), the existing performance metrics used to evaluate layouts reflect poorly these priorities. Consequently, this research will develop new evaluation criteria for layout design that explicitly account for flexibility and responsiveness. Since the operational performance of factories (for example, the ability to produce a large variety of products, manufacture products in small batches, offer customers short lead times, or introduce new products frequently) can be directly affected by layout, this research will also develop analytical models that allow better understanding of the relationship between layout configuration and operational performance. If successful, this research will identify new layout configurations that are more suitable for the emerging needs of the agile factory. These layouts will be flexible, modular and more easily reconfigurable. Flexibility, modularity, and reconfigurability, will save factories the need to redesign their layouts each time their operating requirements change or new products are introduced. The new design tools will provide systematic and efficient methods for configuring and managing these new layouts. Being able to design layouts with the operational requirements of agility in mind (for example, higher variety, shorter time-to-market and shorter manufacturing lead times) will mean greater competitive advantage.