Title: An algorithm for part families identification in cellular manufacturing

Authors: David S. Ang, Charles E. Hegji

Addresses: Auburn University at Montgomery, School of Business – Dept. ISDS, PO Box 244023, Montgomery, Alabama 36124-4023, USA. ' Auburn University at Montgomery, School of Business – Dept. ISDS, PO Box 244023, Montgomery, Alabama 36124-4023, USA

Abstract: The formation of machine-part families is an important task in the design of cellular and flexible manufacturing systems. The formation results in the creation of many benefits for manufacturing systems. Among the many methods utilised in machine-cells formation, the similarity coefficient method (SCM) is most widely used. When SCM is used, the rearrangement of machine and part components is required to form machine-part families. This process of rearrangement has been considered as being subjective and difficult, may result in improper assignments to parts families, resulting in a negation of benefits promised. This paper presents an effective algorithm to identify part-families and bottleneck parts, given machine groupings, rather than addressing the machine grouping problem in general.

Keywords: cellular manufacturing; clustering algorithms; group technology; similarity coefficient; part family identification; part families; manufacturing cells; bottleneck parts; machine grouping.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMPT.1997.036369

International Journal of Materials and Product Technology, 1997 Vol.12 No.4/5/6, pp.320 - 328

Published online: 02 Nov 2010 *

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