A DESIGN METHODOLOGY FOR CONFIGURATION OF MANUFACTURING CELLS

This paper presents a general design methodology for manufacturing cel ls. The approach makes use of the observation that 85% of the producti on demand of a manufacturing facility can be attributed to 15% of the products manufactured in the facility. This logic was extended to manu facturing cell design. Specifically, within a part family, those parts that have a high steady demand should be placed in cells that are con figured and operated similar to a flow line. Those part numbers within the family that have little demand should be assigned to cells design ed to operate more as a job shop. In this way, a manufacturing cell th at is designed to serve both the high and low demand components will n ot be impeded by imposed constraints resulting from demand or processi ng time considerations for individual parts within the family. The aut hor presents a ten step approach for analysis and design of such cells after initial machine-component groupings have been formed. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.