Process Analysis and Flexible Transfer Line Configuration

The offer of the best machine tool configuration for specific customer’s needs is a decisive factor to compete in the machine tool sector. Normally the offer is defined by the manufacturer mostly on the basis of his own experience and requires a considerable effort in terms of time and money while it leads to actual selling in a small percentage of the cases. Also, the knowledge related to the activity of offer preparation is not well formalized and this puts the company in a weak position in the case of retirements or job change of the experts. To address these problems, this paper presents a method for process analysis and transfer lines configuration. Results of the application of the method to a real case are reported