Cell Formation Design Research Articles

Cell formation design with improved similarity coefficient method and decomposed mathematical model

This research develops a new methodology for a cell formation problem in the cellular manufacturing system. The methodology includes two phases. In the first phase, an improved similarity coefficient method, which considers the operation sequence and the number of repeated operations firstly in related researches, is proposed to identify part families. A new decomposed mathematical model is presented in the second phase, which considers some crucial operational aspects such as alternative routing, machine capacity, part demand, operation time, and lot splitting, to assign machines into part families for minimum machine cost, operation cost, and inter-cell movement cost. The model puts emphasis on the effect of trade-off between machine duplication and material inter-cell movement on performance of the cell formation to optimize machine utilization and workload balance. This paper also provides a concrete production schedule with optimum system utilization for cell formation. Test problems and sensitivity analyses are carried out to reveal the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed methodology.

セル間作業負荷バランスを考慮したセルフォーメーション(S60-1 生産システムの新展開(1),S60 生産システムの新展開)

In this paper, a method for cell formation problems considering workload balancing among cells is proposed. In cell formation design containing inter-cell movements of parts, cell designers need to take into account not only minimizing inter-cell movements of parts but also workload balancing among cells. A branch and bound method with lower bounds of the above two criteria is proposed to find Pareto optimal solutions. As an illustrative example, we solve a cell formation problem from the literature using the proposed method. The result show that the proposed method is flexible for cell designers to design cell formation.

Strategic Implications of Manufacturing Cell Formation Design

Cell formation design in cellular manufacturing systems (CMS) has been the focus of recent manufacturing research literature. A great amount of research has been published addressing either technical issues (e.g. part‐machine grouping algorithms) or operational issues (e.g. planning and scheduling in the CMS). Research addressing strategic issues in cell formation design has been minimal. Addresses strategic considerations in cell formation design, specifically, the linkage and relationships between specific cell design issues and the firm′s competitive advantage in the marketplace. It is demonstrated that cell formation design decisions must be addressed in alignment with the firm′s strategic plan and manufacturing competitive priorities.