Survey of manufacturing systems in SMEs: A focus on cell management

In recent years, industrial requirements for products have moved toward small batches and diversification. However, the traditional dedicated manufacturing line, which was initially developed for mass production, is no longer suitable for these manufacturing requirements. Consequently, companies need to improve their performance to adapt to manufacturing requirements and maintain their competitiveness, especially for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), owing to their limited resources, such as finance, equipment, and technology.

This paper reviews different manufacturing systems that SMEs may adopt, including flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), lean manufacturing (LM), and reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMS). Subsequently, the challenges in implementing manufacturing systems for SMEs are listed. Considering the aforementioned challenges, the authors propose basic principles in cell design and cell management to help SMEs adopt new manufacturing at the application level.