معماری سیستم ساختاری برای منفرد سازی توده ای مقرون به صرفه Manufacturing system architecture for cost-effective mass-individualization

1. Evolution of manufacturing paradigms Driven by the social and economic needs in different historical periods, the landscape of manufacturing paradigms has witnessed several major changes in the last century. In 1913, Henry Ford invented the moving assembly line, where a single product could be produced at high throughput and very low cost. This invention symbolizes the start of the mass production paradigm. The development of computer numerical control (CNC) [1] and flexible automation technologies in the late 1970s facilitated the creation of flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs), which enabled a manufacturing system to produce a larger variety of products, forming thereby the mass-customization paradigm [2,3]. A sequence of global events during the 1990s and early 2000s (e.g., the creation of NAFTA and the European Union, and the admission of China to the WTO) initiated the globalization era [4], and, in turn, enhanced the expansion of the mass customization paradigm. Globalization has resulted in (1) an increased frequency at which new products with shorter lifecycles are introduced, and (2) a higher demand for more customized products. In response to these challenges, Koren coined the term ‘‘Reconfigurable Manufacturing System” in his 1995 Engineering Research Center proposal to the US National Science Foundation (NSF).1 There he proposed the RMS architecture and defined RMS as a manufacturing system, which has ‘‘exactly the production resources needed, exactly when needed.” A few years later Koren headed an international team that wrote a keynote paper on RMS [5], which he presented at the CIRP 1999 General Assembly. This paper became CIRP’s highest cited paper, which signifies the considerable international impact of RMS. RMS enables building a ‘‘live” factory that can quickly and costeffectively respond to the changing customer needs. The RMS invention [6] has brought about rapid responsiveness to market changes to quickly satisfy customers’ desires, thereby enhancing the mass-customization paradigm. The increasing maturity of globalization and the popularity of social networks (e.g., Facebook) in the last decade have been dramatically changing the producer-buyer relationships. Consumers nowadays have an increasing desire to buy unique products that reflect their individual preferences or urgent needs (e.g., original decorative art, or bone replacement produced by additive manufacturing). If money were not a constraint, any individualized product could be designed and manufactured; but the reality is that only the rich can afford such products. The challenge is to produce individualized products at a reasonable cost, so the middle class can afford them, and consequently individualized products will be manufactured in large quantities for the benefit of society.