The Impact of Manufacturing Flexibility and Multi-criteria Optimization on the Sustainability of Manufacturing Systems

The presented manuscript deals with the impact of manufacturing flexibility on cost-time investment as a function of sustainable production, which addresses the company’s sustainable social and environmental impact adequately. The impact of manufacturing flexibility on cost-time investment in the research sphere is not described, despite the fact that we know its key role in the high-mix low-volume production types. Recently, researchers have been addressing intensively the impacts of various parameters on the sustainable aspect and its dependence on manufacturing flexibility. The complexity of the influence parameters is reflected in the multi-criteria nature of optimization problems that can be solved with appropriate use of the evolutionary computation methods. The manuscript presents a new method of manufacturing flexibility modelling, with respect to the four-level architectural model, which reflected as a symmetry phenomena influence on the cost-time profile diagram. The solution to a complex optimization problem is derived using the proposed improved heuristic Kalman algorithm method. A new method is presented of optimization parameters’ evaluation with respect to the manufacturing flexibility impacts on cost-time investment. The large impact of appropriate multi-criteria optimization on a sustainably justified production system is presented, with the experimental work on benchmark datasets and an application case. The new method allows a comprehensive optimization approach, and validation of the optimization results by which we can provide more sustainable products, manufacturing processes, and increase the company’s total, social and environmental benefits.