Cellular manufacturing system design with proper assignment of machines and parts

This study is concerned with the strict machine-cell and part-family grouping (MCPFG) in cellular manufacturing system design. Most of MCPFG methodologies often suffer from improper assignment of machines and parts in which exceptional machine has more common operations with machines in a cell other than its own cell and exceptional part has more operations through machines in a cell other than the cell corresponding to its own family. This results in the loss of similarity in part design or common setup of machines and the benefits from the conversion of job shop manufacturing into cellular manufacturing are lost. In this study, a two-phase methodology is proposed to find the machine-cells and part families under the strict constraints in which all machines and parts are assigned to its most proper cells and families. Test results with moderately medium-sized ill-structured MCPFG problems available from the literature show the substantial efficiency of the proposed approach.