Editing Product lifecycle (section)

==Pyramid of production systems==
[[File:Pyramid of Production Systems.jpg|thumb|240px|Pyramid of Production Systems]]
According to Malakooti (2013),<ref>{{cite book|last1=Malakooti |first1=Behnam |title=Operations and Production Systems with Multiple Objectives |date=2013 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=9781118585375}}</ref> there are five long-term objectives that should be considered in production systems:

* Cost: Which can be measured in terms of monetary units and usually consists of fixed and variable costs.
* Productivity: Which can be measured in terms of the number of products produced during a period of time.
* Quality: Which can be measured in terms of customer satisfaction levels for example.
* Flexibility: Which can be considered the ability of the system to produce a variety of products for example.
* Sustainability: Which can be measured in terms of ecological soundness i.e. biological and environmental impacts of a production system.

The relation between these five objects can be presented as a pyramid with its tip associated with the lowest Cost, highest Productivity, highest Quality, most Flexibility, and greatest Sustainability. The points inside of this pyramid are associated with different combinations of five criteria. The tip of the pyramid represents an ideal (but likely highly unfeasible) system whereas the base of the pyramid represents the worst system possible.