Title: An application of analytic network process for the selection of cellular manufacturing systems

Authors: Rambabu Kodali; G. Anand; Matta Udaykiran Reddy

Addresses: National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand – 831014, India ' Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (IIMK), IIMK Campus, Kunnamangalam, Kozhikode, Kerala – 673570, India ' CA Technologies, 115, IT Park Area, Nankaramguda, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh – 500 019, India

Abstract: The ongoing research in the field of cellular manufacturing systems (CMS) is progressing on diverse fronts such as dynamic CMS, virtual CMS, etc. However, the following fundamental issues - 'how an operations manager in an organisation would make a decision of choosing/selecting CMS, when he/she is confronted with different alternatives?', 'how would the manager make a decision, if the decision factors/criteria/attributes (for the sake of simplicity, it will be called as 'elements') are inter-related?' are not given adequate importance. To address the above-mentioned issues, a hypothetical case study is utilised to demonstrate how the managers' can make such a strategic decision using the analytic network process (ANP), one of the recently developed multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) models that has the capability to model the relationships that exist within and between different categories comprising of various decision elements. The results obtained revealed that CMS is a better alternative under the given case situation.

Keywords: job shops; cellular manufacturing systems; CMS selection; flexible manufacturing systems; FMS; multicriteria decision making; MCDM; modelling; analytical network process; ANP; CMS justification; case study; India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2014.065366

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2014 Vol.19 No.3, pp.287 - 318

Published online: 31 Oct 2014 *

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