Published Paper Details:

Manufacturing complexity is not easily defined. The ability to measure manufacturing complexity will permit benchmarking of systems and allow assessment of system design changes on complexity. This project is to identify and classify existing complexity measures, identify the essential elements of a good measure, and propose a measure of manufacturing complexity. Complexity in manufacturing systems remains a challenge and leads to operational issues and increased production cost. In this project, drivers of complexity and typical symptoms of complex manufacturing systems are identified. A comprehensive review of studies published within the last two decades to assess manufacturing system complexity are presented. The key contributions of this review are: 1) a classification of complexity assessment methods based on perceived complexity symptoms. 2) a comprehensive review of assessment methods with cross-evaluation to identify appropriate use based on available data; 3) recommendations for the wider academic and industrial community, based on research trends identified in the literature, as to how complexity assessment should be addressed in the future. It is concluded that the assessment of complexity is necessary so that it can be controlled effectively however the industry suffers from a lack of practical tools to support in this endeavor.