Systemic criterion of sustainability in agile manufacturing

Abstract

Agile manufacturing systems work in a constantly changing global market, particularly assembly systems at the last stage of product differentiation. Meanwhile, sustainability is becoming a key issue for manufacturing strategy. This paper formulates a systemic criterion of sustainability in agile manufacturing and computes it through flexibility and complexity. It is defined as a ratio of utility and entropy as a sustainability measurement. Under a unified framework, utility allows one to quantify the contributions to agility, in particular system flexibility. Complexity is measured by entropy. Thus, an original complementary role of flexibility and the complexity of the system are proposed. Developed from the distribution of system states, the systemic approach to sustainability in terms of output evolution is enriched. Based on a simple assembly line integer model simulation, a first quantitative analysis illustrates the concepts introduced.