Performance analysis of a flexible manufacturing system: A statistical approach

This study focuses on the typical job-shop plant configuration for the semiautomatic manufacturing of parts produced in limited quantities. The treatment consists of quantitative evaluation of the technological performance of a flexible manufacturing system (FMS) with particular reference to the printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) sector. Response surface methodology (RSM), which combines mathematical and statistical techniques to study the morphology of the response surface representing performance cost of system configurations, is here applied for balancing the capacities of the work centres of a PCBA leading industry.