Publications

Abstract : Customized products, shorter product life-cycles and unpredictable patterns of demand have challenged the manufacturers to improve the efficiency and productivity of their production activities. Manufacturing systems should be able to adjust or respond quickly to adopt necessary changes in product design and product demand without major investment. Since shorter product life cycles are an increasingly important issue in cellular manufacturing, one cannot assume that the designed cells will remain effective for a long time. Ignoring the planned new product introductions would necessitate subsequent ad hoc changes to the cellular manufacturing systems (CMS) causing production disruptions and unplanned costs. Thus one has to incorporate the product life cycle changes in the design of cells. This type of model is called the multi-period CMS or dynamic CMS. Since the formed cells in the current period may not be optimal for the next period, the reconfiguration of the cells is required. In this paper, a new approach called adaptive design strategy, is presented to design a cellular manufacturing system that responds to changing product mix and / or demand in future periods by rearranging the current manufacturing system. A multi-objective non-linear mathematical model and an optimal solution procedure is developed simulating the exact situation of dynamic environment. The model incorporates real-life parameters like alternate routing, operation sequence, duplicate machines, product mix, product demand, varying batch size, processing time, machine capacity, and various cost factors. Also a solution methodology of best possible cell formation using a Lingo 11.0 optimal software package is presented and a critical analysis is made for converting functional layout into CMS incorporating realistic constraints and integrated approach.