Group technology concepts as applied to flexible manufacturing systems

Group technology is a rapidly developing productivity improvement tool that can have a significant impact on the development of totally integrated manufacturing facilities and flexible manufacturing systems. In flexible manufacturing systems (FMS), parts grouping into families can be performed to simplify the long- and short-horizon planning. In this paper, the part families problem applicable to short-horizon planning has been discussed. Some of the traditional parts grouping based on classification and coding systems have been reviewed. New methodologies for overcoming the drawbacks of the classical approach to parts grouping have been presented and discussed. The methodologies are easy to implement since they take advantage of the information already stored in the CAD system. In addition, a heuristic algorithm based on group scheduling concept has been developed and used to determine the optimal group and the optimal job sequence for the batch-type production process.