Title: Investigations on performance of process, cellular and virtual cellular layouts

Authors: R. Jayachitra, P.S.S. Prasad

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract: In today|s competitive world, the market demand is characterised by high variability in volume and product mix. The market demand, which is a major input to layout planning highly influences the performance of production system. This paper presents a simulation-based study to demonstrate the influence of layouts on shop floor performance. A subcontracting industry where process layout in existence is chosen for study and the performance of three different layouts namely process, cellular and virtual cellular layouts are evaluated through WITNESS 2006 simulation software. The operational parameters such as part mix variation, setup time and batch size are used for the study. Design of experiments is used to find out the optimum layout based on the performance indicators namely throughput, average percentage utilisation of machines, average work-in-process (WIP) and average flow time. Finally, the performances of cellular and virtual cellular layouts are compared with process layout.

Keywords: production systems; throughput; average percentage utilisation; machine utilisation; average WIP; work in process; average flow time; process layout; cellular manufacturing; manufacturing cells; virtual cellular layout; simulation; design of experiments; DOE; subcontracting; part mix variation; setup times; batch sizes; virtual manufacturing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBSR.2011.040785

International Journal of Business and Systems Research, 2011 Vol.5 No.4, pp.325 - 340

Published online: 17 Apr 2015 *

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