Customized products that highly demanded by customers are having repercussions toward the manufacturing process. The manufacturers face production turbulence which are higher production complexity, higher product varieties, fewer production volume, higher changeover frequencies, higher knowledge requirement for operators, higher work-in-process levels, and low resources’ utilization. Those problems result in low demand fulfillment rate, production inefficiencies, and high production costs. Thus, high variety low volume (HVLV) manufacturers require to provide flexibility and responsiveness toward the production system to handle production turbulence. In order to remain competitive, HVLV manufacturers have to control the production lead time and improve inefficiencies as strategic and operational priorities.

Manufacturing flexibility has been proclaimed as a major competitive weapon for
manufacturers in uncertain environments and turbulence markets. It is argued that manufacturing flexibility has capability to change the production levels rapidly, to develop new products quickly, and to respond towards manufacturing turbulence quickly. HVLV manufacturing is in the area with a lot of manufacturing turbulence which cause imbalance to the manufacturing system. Manufacturing flexibility argued to have agility to handle the manufacturing imbalances by responding to the problem quickly. However, despite the researches of manufacturing flexibility and the familiarity of flexibility, the general understanding of the complex relationships within manufacturing flexibility remains fragmented. General lack of clarity on the concept of flexibility makes practitioners difficult to adequately conceptualize and understand the implementation of flexibility especially in HVLV manufacturing.

Thus, this research has an objective to provide modified required flexibility identification table, practical framework which acts as implementation guide for practitioners, and the critical configurations required in flexibility implementation which are found through utilization of discrete event simulation. This research will focus on handling the high work-in-process levels and low order fulfillment.

The idea of this approach is to present a solution to produce high variety low volume products with high order fulfillment, high throughput rates, and less WIP levels. This research is using a discrete event simulation to model the case study of Italian Manufacturer of high precision mechanical parts for sport and racing cars. This research proves that manufacturing flexibility results in high improvement on production efficiency, throughput rates, order fulfillment, and stable WIP levels. The framework from this research also consist and explain the systematic methodology of flexibility implementation in HVLV manufacturing.

Customized products that highly demanded by customers are having repercussions toward the manufacturing process. The manufacturers face production turbulence which are higher production complexity, higher product varieties, fewer production volume, higher changeover frequencies, higher knowledge requirement for operators, higher work-in-process levels, and low resources’ utilization. Those problems result in low demand fulfillment rate, production inefficiencies, and high production costs. Thus, high variety low volume (HVLV) manufacturers require to provide flexibility and responsiveness toward the production system to handle production turbulence. In order to remain competitive, HVLV manufacturers have to control the production lead time and improve inefficiencies as strategic and operational priorities.

Manufacturing flexibility has been proclaimed as a major competitive weapon for
manufacturers in uncertain environments and turbulence markets. It is argued that manufacturing flexibility has capability to change the production levels rapidly, to develop new products quickly, and to respond towards manufacturing turbulence quickly. HVLV manufacturing is in the area with a lot of manufacturing turbulence which cause imbalance to the manufacturing system. Manufacturing flexibility argued to have agility to handle the manufacturing imbalances by responding to the problem quickly. However, despite the researches of manufacturing flexibility and the familiarity of flexibility, the general understanding of the complex relationships within manufacturing flexibility remains fragmented. General lack of clarity on the concept of flexibility makes practitioners difficult to adequately conceptualize and understand the implementation of flexibility especially in HVLV manufacturing.

Thus, this research has an objective to provide modified required flexibility identification table, practical framework which acts as implementation guide for practitioners, and the critical configurations required in flexibility implementation which are found through utilization of discrete event simulation. This research will focus on handling the high work-in-process levels and low order fulfillment.

The idea of this approach is to present a solution to produce high variety low volume products with high order fulfillment, high throughput rates, and less WIP levels. This research is using a discrete event simulation to model the case study of Italian Manufacturer of high precision mechanical parts for sport and racing cars. This research proves that manufacturing flexibility results in high improvement on production efficiency, throughput rates, order fulfillment, and stable WIP levels. The framework from this research also consist and explain the systematic methodology of flexibility implementation in HVLV manufacturing.

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