A. Basu et al., AN EXPERT-SYSTEM BASED APPROACH TO MANUFACTURING CELL DESIGN, International Journal of Production Research, 33(10), 1995, pp. 2739-2755
Citations number
NO
Categorie Soggetti
Engineering,"Operatione Research & Management Science
The design of cellular systems is a complex, multi-criteria and multi-
step process which can have significant implications for the entire or
ganization. Most research in this area focuses on the formation of par
t families and associated machine groups, one step in the cell design
process. Numerous quantitative techniques have been developed to addre
ss this part-family/machine group formation problem. Existing approach
es include math programming, algorithms for matrix diagonalization, th
e application of network modelling and the use of similarity coefficie
nts. These mathematically-oriented techniques can handle a relatively
limited set of quantitative objectives and, in addition, require many
simplifying assumptions. For this reason, the solutions generated by t
hese techniques are of limited usefulness in actual cell design. This
paper proposes an expert system approach to cell system design. The st
arting point for the expert system is the initial solution generated b
y traditional mathematical techniques. Based on a flexible set of user
-driven quantitative and qualitative factors, the expert system evalua
tes these preliminary solutions for feasibility and quality. If the so
lutions are not satisfactory (infeasible or of low quality), the syste
m suggests modifications.