Analysis the enablers of flexible manufacturing system, using interpretive structural modelling and Interpretive ranking process

The volatile condition of today’s market is forcing the manufacturing managers to adapt the flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) to meet the challenges imposed by international competition, ever changing customer demands, rapid delivery to market and advancement in technology. Despite various barriers to implementation and development of FMS, there are enablers which facilitate this issue. One of the most important issues in this field and also the aim of this paper is to analysis the behavior of these enablers in order to effective utilization of them in the implementation and development of FMS. Enablers identified through literature review and industrial, and academic expert's opinion. Interpretive structural modelling (ISM) is used to develop a hierarchical structure for analyzing the interactions among enablers. Interpretive ranking process (IRP) is then used to examine the dominance relationship. ISM model highlights the importance of top management commitment and Financial investment over other enablers, whereas IRP model revealed supply chain management and operational and control techniques as the most important enablers due to performance areas. This study also gives a comparative account of ISM and IRP and shows that IRP is a more powerful tool, since it goes one-step further and considers the relationship of enablers with measurable performance indicators.