Optimal control of flexible servers in two tandem queues with operating costs
Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences
Improving process flexibility through products assignment with bill of material constraints
Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing
Vertical Flexibility in Supply Chains
Management Science
On flexibility investment in manufacturing system: A multi-objective decision making method
Expert Systems with Applications: An International Journal
Process Flexibility Revisited: The Graph Expander and Its Applications
Operations Research
Characterizing the performance of process flexibility structures
Operations Research Letters
Queueing system topologies with limited flexibility
Proceedings of the ACM SIGMETRICS/international conference on Measurement and modeling of computer systems
Super facilities versus chaining in mitigating disruptions impacts
Computers and Industrial Engineering
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In this paper, we present a new perspective on flexibility in manufacturing and service operations by exploring a type of operational flexibility that we term "structural flexibility (SF)." We focus on strategic-level issues of how flexibility can be created by using multipurpose resources such as cross-trained labor, flexible machines, or flexible factories. The proposed structural flexibility method uses the structure of the capability pattern to generate indices that quantify the ability of a system to respond to variability in its environment. Simulations of serial and parallel queueing networks provide evidence that this index is useful in predicting the performance rank of alternative designs for implementing multifunctionality in the face of variability. The proposed methodology supports managerial insight into structural design of manufacturing and service systems at the strategic level.