Title: Analysis and estimation of complexity level in industrial firms

Authors: Ibrahim H. Garbie, Ashraf Shikdar

Addresses: Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University, P.O. Box 33, Al-Khoud 123, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. ' Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University, P.O. Box 33, Al-Khoud 123, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

Abstract: Nowadays, industrial firms require a reduction in their complexity. Complexity in industrial firms presents a new challenge in this decade, especially, during the global recession. Estimation of the level of complexity in industrial firms is still unclear due to the difficulty of analysis of important issues. This research will put a framework to in-depth analysis of these issues and concepts to estimate the expected complexity level in industrial firms. In this paper, a fuzzy logic approach was proposed to estimate the complexity level of the industrial organisations and a computer software package was created to manipulate a huge amount of collected data. Several case studies were conducted to obtain a clear understanding of the causes of complexity in industrial organisations to demonstrate the proposed methodology of analysis and estimation. The results show that the complexity of industrial organisations is still an ill-structured multi-dimensional problem and needs more attention from manufacturers and academics.

Keywords: manufacturing systems complexity; performance measurements; complex systems; complexity levels; fuzzy logic.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2011.041368

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2011 Vol.8 No.2, pp.175 - 197

Published online: 31 Jan 2015 *

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