Operation Earning Power Modelling of the Manufacturing Process

Abstract

In order to better represent the specified goal of the manufacturing process we propose (as a novelty) as a criterion the Earning Power (EP). It is both synthetic (because it reflects the essential motivation of the manufacturing process) as compliant with the most important five performance aspects, namely: profitability, conformance to specifications, customer satisfaction, return on investment and materials/overhead cost, selected by researchers in order of importance. We present in this paper three modelling techniques for time and cost: analytic, neural network and k-Nearest Neighbor. Using the achieved models, EP is evaluated at the operation level of the manufacturing process.