DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF CELLULAR MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS.

Introduction.
G.T is a manufacturing philosophy, in which similar parts are grouped together according to the manufacturing and design attributes. Cellular manufacturing is an application of group technology. The main objective of the design of a cellular manufacturing system (CMS) is to identify part families to machine cells. This is called cell formation. Different types of algorithms are available in the literature for cell formation.

Benefits of Cellular Manufacturing.

Set up time reduction

Work in process inventory reduction

Material handling cost reduction

Equipment cost and direct/indirect labor cost reduction

Improvement in quality Improvement in material flow Improvement in machine utilization Improvement in space utilization

Key points from the Literature Review

Burbrigde (1971) developed a new algorithm for solving cell formation problem called production flow analysis (PFA).

J McAuley (1972) developed a new method called similarity coefficient method .He used single linkage clustering algorithm (SLCA) for clustering . This algorithm is a Jaccard similarity based algorithm. Different production factors can be incorporated in this method while solving the cell formation problem.
King (1980) proposed an algorithm called rank order clustering algorithm (ROC) for solving the cell formation problem.

Key points from the Literature Review Conti.

Wei and kern (1989)proposed an algorithm based on the commonality score for solving the cell formation problem called linear cell clustering algorithm (LCCA).
Seiffodini (1989) developed an algorithm called average linkage clustering algorithm (ALCA).This algorithm was based on jaccard similarity coefficient. Chow and Hawaleshka (1993)proposed an algorithm for solving the cell formation problem. This algorithm was based on commonality score.