Murali Subramaniyam
The Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology, vol. 23, no. 2, pp.498-503, 2009

Abstract : The micro factory, a miniature manufacturing system, is a means of achieving higher throughput with minimal space, and minimal consumption of energy and resources by downsizing of production processes. Even though, a micro factory is able to perform whole manufacturing processes like the macro factory, the possibility of improving its manufacturing efficiency has not been considered enough. In this paper, an efficiency index is proposed to calculate the efficiency of the micro factory to manufacture a micro pump. The efficiency index has been proposed based on efficiency definition with input and output parameters of the system. Input parameters include cost of system, processing time and energy. Output parameters represent number of product manufactured from the microfactory. Cost of the system has been categorized by micro assembly machine cost, cost of resources, manipulators’ cost, manufacturing space value, and human operators. Processing time has been categorized by assembly time and material handling time.

Keyword : Efficiency Index; Input Parameters; Microfactory; Micro Product; Micro Pump