Manufacturing capability match and evaluation for outsourcing decision-making in one-of-a-kind production

Manufacturing outsourcing has been regarded as a strategic approach to enhance competitiveness of manufacturing enterprises. However, making an outsourcing decision based on historical data and subjective experience in one-of-a-kind production (OKP) is deficient and unpersuasive. Meanwhile, manufacturing capability (MC), comprised of processing capability and production capacity, is the most important factor for outsourcing decision-making (ODM). In this paper, a three-phase description, match and evaluation model of MC is proposed to provide outsourcing decision-making support for manufacturing enterprises. Firstly, a description model of MC is developed based on ontology; then, a four-step match method is put forward to match the processing capability; finally, the evaluation of production capacity is carried out by dealing with the dynamic flexible job-shop problem using the nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II). A simulation study is analyzed to validate the proposed model.