Purpose

The concept of robustness in manufacturing is not easy to capture and even harder to quantify. This paper elaborates an approach to assess robustness in production systems from a holistic input-throughput-output perspective using a pragmatic robustness indicator.

Design/methodology/approach

First, in order to have a precise understanding of what needs to be measured, a concept of robustness in production systems is defined based on a literature overview. Three different aspects are considered to be essential to comprehensively describe robustness in production: the deviations of input resources, of performance and of output. These aspects are translated into an aggregated indicator based on developments of production costs, order delays and output volumes. The indicator-based assessment approach is eventually applied to a flow-shop scheduling case study in the chipboard industry.

Findings

The study shows that an assessment of robustness should not solely focus on a single aspect of a production system. Instead, a holistic view is required addressing the tradeoffs that robustness must balance, such as the one between the realized performance, the corresponding resource requirements and the resulting output. Furthermore, the study emphasizes that robustness can be interpreted as a superior system capability that builds upon flexibility, agility, resilience and resistance.

Research limitations/implications

First, the paper is a call to further test and validate the proposed approach in industry case studies. Second, the paper suggests a modified understanding of robustness in production systems in which not only the deviation of one single variable is of interest but also the behavior of the whole system.

Practical implications

The approach allows practitioners to pragmatically evaluate a production system’s robustness level while quickly identifying drivers, barriers and tradeoffs.

Originality/value

Compared to existing assessment approaches the proposed methodology is one of the first that evaluates robustness in production systems from a holistic input-throughput-output perspective highlighting the different tradeoffs that have to be balanced. It is based upon a comprehensive concept of robustness which also links robustness to adjacent capabilities that were otherwise only treated separately.

中文翻译：

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生产系统的稳健性评估

目的

制造中的健壮性概念不容易捕捉，甚至更难量化。本文阐述了一种使用务实的稳健性指标从整体投入产出量角度评估生产系统稳健性的方法。

设计/方法/方法

首先，为了准确了解需要测量的内容，基于文献概述定义了生产系统中的稳健性概念。全面描述生产鲁棒性的三个不同方面被认为是必不可少的：输入资源，性能和输出的偏差。这些方面根据生产成本，订单延迟和产量的变化转化为汇总指标。基于指标的评估方法最终被应用于刨花板行业的流水车间调度案例研究。

发现

研究表明，对鲁棒性的评估不应仅关注生产系统的单个方面。取而代之的是，需要一个整体的观点来解决健壮性必须平衡的权衡问题，例如在已实现的性能，相应的资源需求和结果输出之间进行权衡。此外，研究强调，鲁棒性可以解释为基于灵活性，敏捷性，弹性和抵抗力的高级系统功能。

研究局限/意义

首先，本文呼吁在行业案例研究中进一步测试和验证所提出的方法。其次，本文提出了对生产系统健壮性的一种修改的理解，其中不仅关注单个变量的偏差，而且关注整个系统的行为。

实际影响

该方法允许从业人员在快速确定驱动程序，障碍和折衷的同时，务实地评估生产系统的稳健性水平。

创意/价值

与现有的评估方法相比，所提出的方法是从整体输入，吞吐量，输出角度评估生产系统健壮性的第一种方法，突出了必须权衡的不同权衡。它基于鲁棒性的综合概念，该概念还将鲁棒性与相邻功能（否则仅单独处理）联系在一起。