On-line assessment of the manufacturing systems copettiveness

Abstract

A company is competitive on a certain market when it succeeds in reaching, up to an acceptable level, some economic indicators: turnover, profit, market share comparable or superior to that of other competing companies acting on the same market. Many approaches to the problem of competitiveness show that, today, competitiveness is defined by the economic factors and indicators and is more a suggested/induced notion than a numerically evaluated one. The approaches are of economic and managerial nature, while the relationship with the technical aspects of competitiveness is less noticeable. At this point there is no algorithm to evaluate the technical and economic competitiveness, moreover, the technical factors are not considered, although consumption and costs incurred by the manufacturing processes are generated by technical actions. In this context, the notion of competitiveness gains new valences, including factors and policies that determine the ability of the enterprise to get a favourable place on the market, to maintain that place and to continuously improve its position. In this paper, competitiveness will be understood as the capacity (potential) to provide performance (compared with other similar elements), in a very punctual way, within a macroeconomic concrete context and at a certain time. A case studyreferring to the assessment algorithm is presented, showing the use of the algorithm in the on-line management of the manufacturing system to obtain maximum competitiveness.