A WORK LOAD-ORIENTED HEURISTIC METHODOLOGY FOR MANUFACTURING CELL-FORMATION ALLOWING REALLOCATION OF OPERATIONS

The majority of manufacturing cell formation procedures are routing-ba sed and rely on existing part routings. However, the reliance on fixed routings in cell formation can be subject to criticism since operatio ns can often be performed on alternative machines. This paper suggests a new heuristic methodology that incorporates the concept of realloca ting operations to alternative machines, while meeting capacity constr aints. The procedure works with routes specified both in terms of oper ations and machines and uses a clustering technique based on a new sim ilarity index. Furthermore, the procedure is user-interactive, allowin g the analyst to intervene at several points during the cell formation process.