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Cellular manufacturing system has been proved a vital approach for batch and job shop production systems. Group technology has been an essential tool for developing a cellular manufacturing system. The paper aims to discuss various cell formation techniques and highlights the significant research work done in past over the years and attempts to points out the gap in research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1. A new similarity coefficient measure has been developed and this coefficient measure is used to form a part-family. 2. A mathematical model that uses this similarity coefficient for solving the part-family formation problems optimally in an FMS is developed. The fuzzy approach has the special advantage of producing more accurate results than conventional clustering and other methods. It not only reveals the specific part family that a part belongs to, but also provides the degree of membership of a part associated with each part family. This will give a balanced work load for the machine. In the second part of this paper, the introduction of the concept of genetic algorithms is proposed to eliminate more job sequences and, finally, the optimum sequence is obtained through the minimum penalty cost. Software is developed and implemented to obtain an optimum sequence and, finally, a numerical example is given as an illustration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concurrent formation of part families and machine cells can be achieved by using various algorithms based on the part-machine matrix. Although, part features form the basis for the formation of the part-machine matrix, part features are not directly considered in the process of forming part families and machine cells. The goal of this paper is to understand the characteristics of machine cells in terms of part features. The relationship between part features and machine cells is captured as a decision tree. The decision tree also becomes a tool for post-clustering analysis including evaluation of different clustering methods and for the classification of ambiguous parts. The simplicity of the decision tree, the number of parts classified by each leaf of the tree, and the effect of pruning on the tree are used as metrics to evaluate the clustering methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of allocating new parts to existing part families in cellular manufacturing systems is addressed in this paper. A part-family identification model is proposed to develop a part-allocation scheme based on the tooling requirements of the parts and the tooling available on the machine tools. Using this scheme, new parts may be allocated to appropriate families based on their tooling requirements. The approach suggested in this paper is demonstrated using real data from an industrial setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]