Evolution, principles and recent trends in reconfigurable manufacturing system

Abstract

In today's era, the companies need to respond rapidly to the new product introduction, mix and demand changes to stay competitive. It has been very well accepted that traditional manufacturing systems are not suitable to offer an edge in such a competitive market. Reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMS) appear to be a most promising mechanism for enabling the manufacturing sector to be more competitive and sustain itself in the tough global scenario. This manuscript attempts to survey the characteristics of RMS and evolution of research to improve the practical applicability of RMS. Further the recent trends of reconfigurable manufacturing system in the present context have also been discussed along with the future research directions.