Development of modular manufacturing systems—a review

Manufacturers throughout the world are facing major new challenges, including shorter product life cycles and increasing competition. As companies strive to rationalize engineering design, manufacturing, and support processes and to produce a large variety of products at lower costs, modularity is becoming a focus. This paper reviews the methodologies for determining modular manufacturing systems while considering cost and performance. The manufacturing concept, termed modular production systems and modular manufacturing systems are aimed specifically at “hard” low to medium technology products, as typified by goods such as children’s toys and kitchen appliances. It was proposed to increase the flexibility of the manufacturing operation in terms of its range of function, product, and service by modularizations and its ability to be easily reconfigured in the face of changing conditions.