Application Of Cellular Manufacturing Research Articles

Case Studies on Design for Seru Manufacturing

Four types of cellular manufacturing were examined on their requirements in product characteristics, i.e., yatai, rotating seru, divisional seru, and cellular manufacturing with group technology. Their corresponding relationships with two types of product architecture were studied, an integral product architecture and a modular product architecture. 81 cases on the application of cellular manufacturing were collected. The results show that comparing with the integral product architecture, the products with a modular architecture may have the higher possibility to be applied with seru production. The results can give some suggestions on the application of seru production.

Static total cost comparison model to identify economic fields of application of Cellular Manufacturing for milling and drilling processes versus done-in-one-concepts

The predominant approach on machining is to manufacture a workpiece on a complex done-in-one machine tool. In contrast, the Cellular Manufacturing concept splits up the machining steps and distributes them sequentially to several simpler and cost-efficient machine tools with a higher manual workload. Both concepts are technically feasible, but the question which approach is favorable from an economic perspective is still open.This article first identifies relevant input factors like machining tasks, operator work content, labor and capital costs, etc. Available machine tools are grouped by a k-means cluster analysis, human tasks of operation are identified by an MTM-UAS analysis. Together with key performance indicators like ‘cell balancing efficiency’, all data are transferred into monetary values and combined to a static total cost comparison model. The paper closes with a validation on industrial parts and a sensitivity analysis of the results achieved.

Agent-based dynamic part family formation for cellular manufacturing applications

One of the main critique on cellular manufacturing and its algorithms is their inability to handle dynamics events, especially dynamic changes in part spectrum. Unfortunately, there are not many efforts in the literature to overcome this problem. Agent oriented computing provides a marvellous opportunity to handle dynamic problems and to provide effective solutions, if carefully and intelligently implemented. In this paper, we have proposed a novel agent-based clustering algorithm for part family formation in cellular manufacturing by considering dynamic demand changes. However, it is not easy to directly compare the performance of the proposed algorithm with the literature results as there is no benchmark for dynamic cell formation problems. We attempt to compare the performance of the present algorithm on static test problems by dynamically introducing parts in these data-sets to our algorithm. Many results have been presented on these static data-sets by utilising several heuristics, meta-heuristics and optimisation-based algorithms. Although the proposed algorithm is not an optimisation-based algorithm and its operation is directed to handle dynamic changes in the problem domain through negotiation, we have shown that it has ability to provide very good results which are comparable to the best known solutions.

The Application of Cellular Manufacturing in Hard Disk Drive Industry

Cellular Manufacturing System (CMS) is used widely in multiple-product industries because CMS is the management of cells for flexibility of production system. Processes or machines are arranged in similar groups, and products are categorized in appropriate production groups. This study used CMS to apply to the hard disk drives industry. The goal is to increase productivity but decrease work flow distance by utilizing the management algorithm of cells. The group of cells yielded from this algorithm will be used in CMS, and the measure of performance for the groups of cells management are grouping efficacy, inter-cell production flow, and work flow distance. The systems of before and after applying CMS are simulated in order to investigate the change in production. There are two significant results obtained from this study. Four out of six product types improved in production: 2.29%, 16.22%, 3.39%, and 4.16%. In addition, the work flow distance of six product types decreased: 46.80%, 41.41%, 45.95%, 7.63%, 2.66%, and 13.61%.

Cellular Manufacturing Applications in MRO Operations

Cellular manufacturing delivers improvements in productivity, lead time and quality. Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) customers require shorter turn-around-times and reductions in price. The application of cellular manufacturing concepts offers the potential to deliver Original Equipment manufacturing levels of productivity improvement and lead time reductions to MRO operations. Six businesses that practice MRO operations were evaluated to establish the extent and benefits of the application of cell manufacturing techniques to MRO operations. They all reported benefits in turn-around-time and operational performance. All businesses also noted that the difficulties associated with implementation and management of cellular MRO systems related to the variability of input conditions.

Efficiency and Economic Evaluation of Cellular Manufacturing to Enable Lean Machining

The ideas of Group Technology and Cellular Manufacturing have been a research topic for decades. Although widely implemented in assembly, the principles of flow production as central element of Lean Production have not often been transferred successfully to machining areas yet. In times of continuously rising hardware complexity Cellular Manufacturing is an alternative approach to enable both, flow production and volume flexibility in machining, but can rarely be found in Europe. Current research activities focus on identifying relevant performance indicators to evaluate economic fields of application of Cellular Manufacturing using the example of milling.

A Genetic Algorithm tool for optimising cellular or functional layouts in the capital goods industry

The literature on the design of manufacturing facilities has two major themes: the application of cellular manufacturing, including the use of clustering methods; and the solution of facilities layout problems using optimisation methods. Most previous research has been based upon relatively small or theoretical problems. This paper presents a Genetic Algorithm optimisation method that has been developed which can be applied to a set of manufacturing cells or to an entire manufacturing facility. The approach can be used for either green field or brown field layout problems. The model was tested using a large data set from a collaborating capital goods company. Genetic Algorithm programs include a number of parameters including the probabilities of crossover and mutation, the population size and the number of generations. A full factorial experiment was performed to identify the best configuration. The results were compared with the Company's layout and the best layout that could be generated randomly. When the layout was considered as brown-field problem there was a reduction of total rectilinear distance travelled of 25% compared to the Company's layout. The number of generations was the only statistically significant factor. When the layout was treated as a green-field problem the total rectilinear distance travelled was reduced by 70% and the population size, the number of generations and the probability of crossover were statistically significant.

Human related issues in manufacturing cell design, implementation, and operation

The application of cellular manufacturing in batch-type environments is a well-known manufacturing strategy that typically improves manufacturing efficiency by utilizing the philosophy of group tec...

Human related issues in manufacturing cell design, implementation, and operation: a review and survey

The application of cellular manufacturing in batch-type environments is a well-known manufacturing strategy that typically improves manufacturing efficiency by utilizing the philosophy of group technology. It is also important that for the successful implementation of cellular manufacturing, that one focuses both on technical issues (cell formation and design) and human issues. Unfortunately, human issues are typically not examined as rigorously as often as technical issues. This paper presents an overview and evaluation of the diverse range of human issues involved in cellular manufacturing based on an extensive literature review. Further, a survey to determine the importance of eight different human issues in cellular manufacturing was administered to a sample of academics, managers, and workers involved in cellular design and implementation results are presented and discussed.

Capability-based distributed layout approach for virtual manufacturing cells

It is shown in the literature that in highly volatile manufacturing environments functional job shops and classical cellular manufacturing systems do not perform well. Classical cellular manufacturing systems are very sensitive to changing production requirements due to their limited flexibility. In order to adapt cellular manufacturing systems to volatile manufacturing environments, the virtual cellular manufacturing concept was proposed in the 1980s by the National Bureau of Standards in USA. This concept is similar to group technology where job families are processed in manufacturing cells. The main difference between a virtual cell and the classic cell is in the dynamic nature of the virtual manufacturing cell; whereas the physical location and identity of classic cell is fixed, the virtual cell is not fixed and will vary with changing production requirements. The virtual manufacturing cell concept allows the flexible reconfiguration of shop floors in response to changing requirements. In the literature, the formation and scheduling process of virtual cells are clearly explained and researched in detail. However, the layout issue is not addressed entirely. Virtual cells are generally formed over functionally divided job shops. Forming virtual cells over a functional layout may adversely affect the performance of a virtual cellular manufacturing system. There is a need to search for different layout strategies in order to enhance the performance. The distributed layout approach may be a better alternative for virtual cellular manufacturing applications. In this research paper, a novel capability-based approach is proposed for the design of distributed layouts. A simulated annealing based heuristic algorithm is developed from the distributed layout. The proposed approach is tested with a problem with real data. An example is also shown in order to give an idea about the superiority of a capability-based distributed layout over the functional layouts in forming virtual manufacturing cells.

Shop Performance Implications of Using Cells, Partial Cells, and Remainder Cells*

ABSTRACTThis paper considers the application of cellular manufacturing (CM) to batch production by exploring the shop floor performance trade‐offs associated with shops employing different levels of CM. The literature has alluded to a continuum that exists between the purely departmentalized job shop and the completely cellular shop. However, the vast majority of CM research exists at the extremes of this continuum. Here, we intend to probe performance relationships by comparing shops that exist at different stages of CM adoption. Specifically, we begin with a hypothetical departmentalized shop found in the CM literature, and in a stepwise fashion, form independent cells. At each stage, flow time and tardiness performance is recorded. Modeling results indicate that, depending on shop conditions and managerial objectives, superior shop performance may be recorded by the job shop, the cell shop, or by one of the shops between these extreme points. In fact, under certain conditions, shops that contain partially formed cells perform better than shops that use completely formed cells. Additional results demonstrate that in order to achieve excellent performance, managers investigating specific layouts need to pay especially close attention to changes in machine utilization as machine groups are partitioned into cells.

The application of cellular manufacturing: A regional small to medium enterprise perspective

Cellular manufacturing has been advocated as the preferred approach to the organization of a company's manufacturing system for moderate volume and moderate variety parts. In addition, the use of cells is central to just-in-time (JIT) production and lean manufacture. Although the merits of cells in comparison with a traditional functional arrangement continue to be debated, it remains to be seen as to the actual extent of adoption of cells by the discrete-batch manufacturing community. This short communication presents a review of recent UK-based studies which concludes that cellular manufacturing is not as widespread as might be expected. In this context, the present authors undertook a regional study investigating the application of cellular manufacturing within Merseyside, and with a specific focus on small to medium enterprises (SMEs). The results of this study are presented. The implications of the adoption of cells with respect to the SME community, including support for their implementation, are also discussed.

MOCACEF 1.0: Multiple objective capability based approach to form part-machine groups for cellular manufacturing applications

A pre-emptive goal programming formulation is developed for concurrently forming independent part/machine cells. Machine independent capability units, which are known as Resource Elements (RE), are used to define processing requirements of parts and processing capabilities of machine tools. Representation of unique and shared capability boundaries of machine tools is possible via RE, which increases the opportunity to form independent manufacturing cells and efficient utilization of them. RE-based operation sequences, processing times, capacities, demand, cell sizes, cell flexibility, load balance between cells, cell interaction, copies of each machine type in the job shop are all considered in the problem formulation. The model is solved by a specially developed tabu search algorithm.

A polynomial-time algorithm for optimal clustering in a special class of {0, l} -matrices

The process of forming group technology based families for cellular manufacturing applications often entails the identification ofclusters in {0, l}-matrices. Most of the methods developed to date for cluster formation in this context employ heuristics that typically generate sub-optimal solutions (in terms of the number of exceptional elements). In this paper, we will describe a polynomial-time algorithm, based on a graph-theoretic approach, for optimal cluster formation in a class of {0, l}-matrices called vertex-tree graphic matrices. A comparison of the performance of this algorithm with popular heuristics is also provided. The algorithm can be used as a benchmarking tool for cluster formation heuristics.

Component grouping for cell formation using resource elements

The work reported in this paper recognises that the traditional close association between components and a fixed route utilising a set of machine tools can no longer be relied upon as an appropriate basis for deciding component similarity and partitioning components into families in modern manufacturing applications. A new methodology for describing the capabilities of machine tools and machining facilities using generic capability units termed 'resource elements' is reported. REs are used to capture the processing requirements of components, assessing their similarity and a fuzzy grouping procedure is used for simultaneously grouping components and machine tools for cellular manufacturing applications. The reported results show that the use of resource elements leads to component groups that are more compact with better matching between processing requirements of components and the capabilities of the machine tools selected for their processing compared with the conventional machine-based approach.

Cellular Manufacturing at Champion Irrigation Products

Champion Irrigation Products is a company which has started to employ the principles of Cellular Manufacturing in its operations. Undertakes the task of examining the applicability of Cellular Manufacturing at the company by using several methods for cell formation. Describes the design and implementation phase of the application, along with the obstacles encountered and solutions provided. Benefits realized from the application of Cellular Manufacturing at Champion Irrigation Products include reduction in work‐in‐process inventory and materials movement, increase in quality, and simplification of production, planning and control procedures. The success of the application lies in the fact that management at Champion Irrigation Products did not view Cellular Manufacturing as a mere rearrangement of the factory floor, but as a starting‐point for the continuous questioning of its practices, with the goal of improving the manufacturing function.

Machine-component group analysis versus the similarity coefficient method in cellular manufacturing applications

Among approaches to the machine cell formation problem, the similarity coefficient method and machine-component group analysis have been widely used to form machine cells for cellular manufacturing applications. While algorithms based on machine-component group analysis work effectively in cases of disjoint machine-component groups, they do not provide satisfactory solutions in the presence of bottleneck machines. The similarity coefficient method overcomes this problem. This paper compares these two approaches when applied to the machine cell formation problem.