Abstract:

Enterprises manufacture their products under mounting global competition, prevalent on various strategic levels. It is, however, primarily experienced with respect to production costs and product quality. Facing the challenges of fierce competition, manufacturers attend to their customers’ needs with high-degree customisability and personalisation, which proves to be increasingly difficult to meet under production optimisation constraints. Implementing certain components of flexible manufacturing systems may only partially solve the problem since it presents no case for raising the production costs while meeting deadlines and maintaining the highest quality of the product.