There are essentially two ways to implement a Cellular Manufacturing System (CMS): physical and logical. In the first case, the machines are laid out in the floor space in dedicated manufacturing cells to exploit flow shop efficiency in processing part families, whereas in the second case machines are dedicated to process part families in a process layout. Logical oriented CMS are known as Virt...

Cellular manufacturing (CM) is one of the most important subfields in the design of manufacturing systems. As a recently emerged field of study and practice, virtual cellular manufacturing (VCM) is of enormous importance as one of the types of CM . One kind of VCM problems is VCM with alternative processing routes from which the route for processing each part should be selected. In this study, ...

This paper deals with the transient analysis of manufacturing systems in the presence of failures and repairs. The exact model is decomposed into 1) a structure state process, modeling the failure and repair events which occur at a slower time scale, and 2) a performance model, modeling the part processing and material movement events occurring at a faster time scale. The solutions of these two...

Many traditional high-mix, low-volume manufacturing facilities utilize process villages, whereby similar operations are grouped together in an effort to gain efficiencies. While process villages can improve certain metrics and increase capacity utilization, many wastes can be created that outweigh most benefits. In many cases process villages operate with large batch sizes, which result in long...

This case study industry manufactures more than 45 different sizes of tubes for 9 different buyers and is one of the largest manufacturers of Automotive Butyl Inner Tubes in India. In the present plant layout the industries main plant has 8 major aisles. Machines are classified based on the operations and order of process. The machine aisles are arranged using cellular manufacturing concept of ...

The combination of multi-functional machines and mobile robots supports the emergence of highly flexible intelligent manufacturing systems (IMS). In this kind of manufacturing system, some machines must stay fixed at previously established positions (heavy equipment) but some types of multi-functional machines (small flexible equipment and mobile robots) can stay in one position for one or seve...

This paper provides a framework and a road map for people who are ready to transform their traditional production system from process orientation to cellular orientation, based on Axiomatic Design (AD) principles. A feedback mechanism for continuous improvement is also suggested for evaluating and improving the cellular design against preselected performance criteria. A complete implementation ...

Multi-objective layout optimization methods for the conceptual design of robot cellular manufacturing systems are proposed in this paper. Robot cellular manufacturing systems utilize one or more flexible robots which can carry out a large number of operations, and can conduct flexible assemble processes. The layout design stage of such manufacturing systems is especially important since fundame...

The spreading use of cellular structures brings the need to speed up manufacturing processes without deteriorating mechanical properties. By using Selective Laser Melting (SLM) to produce cellular structures, the designer has total freedom in defining part geometry and manufacturing is simplified. The paper investigates the suitability of Selective Laser Melting for manufacturing steel cellular...

Lean manufacturing is a production philosophy made popular by Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC). It is globally known as the Toyota Production System (TPS) and has the ultimate aim of reducing cost by thoroughly eliminating wastes or muda. TPS embraces the Just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing; achieving cost reduction through lead time reduction. JIT manufacturing can be achieved by implementing Pull ...