A framework for the design of cellular manufacturing systems

Abstract

A two-stage procedure for the design of a cellular manufacturing system is proposed. The first stage forms the part families. The use of clustering techniques with a new proximity measure is advocated for this stage. The proximity measure uses the manufacturing operations and the operations' sequences. The second stage forms the machine cells. An integer programming model is proposed for this stage. The solution of this model will specify the type and the number of machines in each cell and the assignment of the part families to the cells. The relevance of this approach in the design of flexible manufacturing systems is discussed.