THE CELLULAR MANUFACTURING EVOLUTION

Since its introduction, the cellular manufacturing concept has conside rably evolved. In the last few years, two new paradigms that inherit f rom the cellular manufacturing concept have been developed. These new paradigms consist of exploiting the potential offered by a virtual cel lular organization and a dynamic cellular organization. These paradigm s are a natural evolution of contemporary cellular manufacturing syste ms actually implemented in world-class factories all over the globe. T he virtual cellular manufacturing concept and the dynamic cellular man ufacturing concept permit gains both in terms of performance and flexi bility by capitalizing on the advances in computer science and informa tion technology. This paper aims at presenting these new organization paradigms. To do so, it focuses on exposing their fundamental roots, t hen it studies critical elements associated to the design and manageme nt of these systems. Even though the paradigms of virtual and dynamic cellular organizations are in their early infancy, research being cond ucted tend to indicate that these new organization paradigms may be a serious rival to the classical cellular organization.