Comparing quantifiable methods to measure complexity in assembly Online publication date: Tue, 29-Jul-2014
by Sandra Mattsson; Malin Karlsson; Per Gullander; Hendrik Van Landeghem; Luiza Zeltzer; Veronique Limère; El-Houssaine Aghezzaf; Åsa Fasth; Johan Stahre
International Journal of Manufacturing Research (IJMR), Vol. 9, No. 1, 2014
Abstract: In order to measure complexity and stay competitive, manufacturing companies need to be able to quantify production complexity. For this reason, two methods were developed within the context of two concurrent research projects are compared: the Belgian Complexity Calculator, CXC, measures objective complexity and the Swedish Complexity Index, CXI, focuses on subjective complexity, as experienced by operators in the stations. This paper presents a comparative analysis of the two methods by comparing them to seven relevant existing quantitative methods and by examining results from case studies. It is observed that the two methods can be used as a compliment to one another, where CXC can be used for scanning data automatically, CXI can be used for in-depth analysis. In addition, the comparison of existing methods provides insight on how to measure complexity depending on need and scope. [Received 20 May 2013; Revised 30 September 2013; Accepted 13 October 2013]
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