The activity flexibility option is incorporated into the new model by defining two routing alternatives, route 1 and route 2 that include only two activities. The model can be modified to include more than two activities in one route. In addition, future research is needed to include more than one activity flexibility option to the proposed model. Dependencies among the different flexibility options should also be considered while conducting this future research. Furthermore, this study demonstrates how to include an outsourcing alternative for one activity in a product-mix decision problem. Extending the model to include more than one outsourcing option is possible.
This study demonstrates how the profitability of a company can be increased by considering several alternatives such as activity flexibility and outsourcing. However, the alternative of improving the performance of a system through capital investments is not included in this study. Future research is required to develop systems that will demonstrate the impact of various machinery choices on the performance of a whole system.
Therefore, testing the concepts developed in this study on real companies with real data is recommended as a final area of future work.