LOGICAL CELL-FORMATION IN FMS, USING FLEXIBILITY-BASED CRITERIA

Flexible manufacturing systems often are organized into a cellular arc hitecture for ease of operation. The formation of these cells sometime s has been treated as an extension of the conventional cell-formation problem. This paper argues that, owing to the existence of flexible ro uting and transfer capabilities, the cell-formation problem in FMSs sh ould be treated as quite distinct from that in conventional manufactur ing systems and shows that a flexibility-based procedure is apt for ov ercoming the deficiencies of earlier forays into this area. Manufactur ing cell flexibility is defined as a composite of three flexibility me asures: producibility, processivity, and transferability. The problem of cell formation is modeled as flexibility maximization, and a proced ure is developed for the simultaneous formation of machine cells and p art families, while heuristically maximizing within-cell flexibility.