The impact of smart manufacturing on achieving production flexibility

Case study in Al Furat General Company for Industries, Soda and Chlorine Production Plant

A thesis submitted to the Council of the College of Administration and Economics – University of Karbala as a requirement for obtaining a Master’s degree in Business Administration.

Written by the student

 Wafaa Abdul Hussein Khamis Al-Hasnawi

Supervised by

Professor Dr. Amir Ghanem Wadi Al-Awadi

Abstract:

This study aims to demonstrate the impact of smart manufacturing in achieving production flexibility, as there were two main problems in Al-Furat Al-Awsat Company in the soda and chlorine production plant, the study sample, and they are as follows: 1. Not achieving production flexibility in accordance with its basic requirements, as well as not adopting smart manufacturing techniques. In achieving production flexibility in the factory producing soda and chlorine 2. Not adopting smart manufacturing in the factory mentioned above. The researcher relied on two approaches: the case study approach to analyze the checklist for smart manufacturing and the checklist for production flexibility and diagnosing the gaps, and the descriptive analytical approach to determine the extent of the impact of smart manufacturing on… To achieve production flexibility in the investigated factory, the researcher used Excel 2016 and SPSS 26 and used some statistical methods such as weighted average and percentage.

For matching and application gap size to diagnose gaps in checklists. The most important conclusions reached by the researcher through the results of the checklists for applying smart manufacturing were that some standards have achieved partial implementation in adopting standards of production flexibility. Therefore, the researched factory must know the strengths and enhance them and address the weaknesses. There is a gap in the application of smart manufacturing standards and production flexibility. In the researched factory, it was also concluded that there is a significant relationship between smart manufacturing and production flexibility and a significant relationship between smart manufacturing and production flexibility in the researched factory.

Keywords: intelligent manufacturing, production flexibility.