A cellular similarity coefficient algorithm for the design of manufacturing cells

Abstract

The development and implementation of an integrated system for computer-aided process planning and cellular manufacturing design is described. A coding scheme is proposed for classifying parts according to the manufacturing processes required to produce them. The routeing data and the classification codes obtained from computer-aided process planning are then stored in a database. A heuristic algorithm has also been developed for designing manufacturing cells using the classification data stored in the process planning database. This algorithm is based on a new concept developed in this study called cellular similarity coefficient which considers the similarity between machine cells rather than individual machines, as in the case of other similarity coefficients.