Cell design and continuous improvement

This paper describes methods for the practical implementation of the follow ing three stages of cell design: determining cell configurations, identifyi ng a layout and carrying out capability analysis. Although emphasis is plac ed on how these stages were implemented within a cell design software packa ge called Cellect, in order to ensure that the methods are suitable for use within small manufacturing firms, an attempt is also made to describe how cell design might be performed using office desktop software. In this respe ct, it has been shown that for the design of small cellular systems, a nonp roprietary system can be used to implement the algorithms outlined herein, but for more advanced analysis, particularly that involving integration wit h external elements such as discrete event simulation, a requirement exists for a dedicated database driven system such as Cellect.