Cell Loading and Scheduling in Synchronized Manufacturing Cells.

This study has been conducted based on a case observed in a jewelry manufacturing company where the company has converted a process layout into cellular layout. This conversion created the need for cell loading and cell scheduling process. Cell loading assigns the products to the cells and then the cell scheduling isperformed to determine product sequence and manpower allocation decisions in each cell. In this paper, a synchronized manufacturing environment is considered. The products move from one manufacturing stage to the next at the end of each time period also known a stime bucket. The number of operators needed in a time bucket may be different based on the manpower requirement for each process. This study examines the mathematical model for cell loading and cell sequencing in multiple cells. Several experiments have been conducted that shows that multiple cell sequencing outperform the single cell sequencing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]