Decision-Making Process in Manufacturing Technology Planning for Small Scale Productions

Today´s world of business is challenged by global markets that are becoming increasingly competitive due to globalization. Especially, small scale manufacturers have to rely on state-of-the-art manufacturing technologies to deal with today´s ever-changing business environment and customer requirements. With the help of the right manufacturing technology portfolio high degrees of automation and cost efficiency can be realized without sacrificing the manufacturing system´s flexibility. We developed a systematic decision-making process in manufacturing technology planning and selection of proper machinery for small scale manufacturing companies. This process takes a six step decision-making approach, which relies on a work piece categorization to develop abstract manufacturing concepts which are then preselected, concretized and finally assessed. The outcome of the presented approach is a portfolio matrix which opposes the final manufacturing systems´ degree of utility to their respective costs.