STUDY OF BARRIERS AND IMPLEMENTATION OF FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEM IN INDIAN AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY

Abstract

Rapidly changing consumer preferences and technological innovation demands enhanced manufacturing flexibility not only for productivity enhancement but for the survival of manufacturing company. Higher manufacturing flexibility offers the company to feed their customers with the variety of product according to their demand. Flexibility in manufacturing system helps to accommodate dynamic changes and helps the company to sustain in the competitive market. This research focuses on prioritization of considered barriers, which are faced during implementation of the Flexible manufacturing system in Indian Automobile Industry. To achieve the objective, a set of significant barriers were identified based on literature review and discussion with field experts, chosen from automobile industry located at National capital region (NCR) of India. Fuzzy TOPSIS methodology is used to priorities these barriers. Analysis of the findings reveals that top four prioritized factors High initial capital cost, skilled workers, Resource allocation problem, and Floor layout problem are the four most important among all 17 factors. These significant factors to be considered for the effective implementation of flexible manufacturing systems in context to Indian automobile Industry.