Measuring and designing flexibility as a generalized service degree

This paper designs and measures flexibility as the availability of a dynamic system in an uncertain environment. After a brief discussion of the literature, flexibility is defined essentially as the service degree of a system's dynamic technology. As a further step, this measure is extended to incorporate a system's planning, forecasting, and implementation ability. To obtain a deeper insight into the complex nature of the measure the design of flexibility is discussed within the framework of hierarchical planning.