Development of a structural framework to improve reconfigurable manufacturing system adoption in the manufacturing industry

The Reconfigurable Manufacturing System (RMS) has drawn the interest of researchers and practitioners due to its ability to meet dynamic customer needs while also providing flexibility and productivity in manufacturing. To increase RMS adoption, it is necessary to identify Reconfigurable-Manufacturing-System-Enablers (RMSEs) and develop a structural framework to guide practitioners to focus at different stages of implementation. To identify RMSEs, an extensive literature review is conducted, and the structural framework is developed using hybrid Robust-Best-Worst-Method (RBWM)-Interpretive Structural Modelling-(ISM) method with the assistance of expert opinion. The interactions among the selected RMSEs are further investigated, and their driving-dependence power is computed using the fuzzy-MICMAC (cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification, abbreviated as MICMAC) method. The study’s findings clearly show that four RMSEs in the low-intensity cluster are excluded during initial framework development phase, while the remaining are utilised further for framework development to achieve better RMS implementation. The presented study has clear practical implications for both researchers and practitioners in the industry. This is a unique study that offers an integrated view of major RMSEs. The authors believe that the proposed structural framework will act as a roadmap for researchers working in the RMS domain and will assist in its adoption.