Design and Scheduling of Cellular Manufacturing Systems : Practical Approaches, Case Studies, Application to Bench Mark Problems

The need for increasing productivity in batch manufacturing has led to the concepts of group technology (GT) and cellular manufacturing (CM). Cellular Manufacturing is the application of Group Technology. The advantages derived from cellular manufacturing include reduced number of setups, reduced material handling costs, decreased work-in-process inventories, improved work space utilization and simplified planning and scheduling. In this book the following three problems are dealt with new approaches considering more practical information. (1) Design of part families based on design features - (FAFF) (2) Complete design of cellular manufacturing system, along with best layouts - (DECEMOS) (3) Detailed schedules of operations in the cellular manufacturing system - (SICEM) These methods were applied to two companies and found satisfactory results. They were also applied to bench mark problems and found better results. A new criterion named "family index" is suggested in this book, to measure the goodness of part families.