Flexibility is, now-a-days, the key to new manufacturing technology for small and medium volume applications. This characteristic of production becomes especially necessary when a demand for much more diversified products exists within a particular company and additionally when there is a need to adjust production rates to the fluctuations in commercial orders without costly and time-consuming revision in system setups.

A Flexible Manufacturing System can be defined as a process facility under total computer control with automated work flow system to produce a variety of parts in small batches within the stated capability and to a predetermined schedule. In simple terms, it can be defined as a system providing mass production economies in a batch production environment.

A flexible manufacturing system does not work in isolation from the rest of the company as is apparent from the overview showing the flexible manufacturing system environment and the flow of information.