Selection of parts and machines for cellularization: A mathematical programming approach

The extent to which a company accounts for the manufacturing activities (in terms of annual hours) in cells is referred to as ‘degree of cellularization’ of the company. The objective of this paper is to provide a mathematical framework to consider the issues related to selection of parts and machines for cellularization. The models developed aid in deciding the optimal variety of parts, portion of demand to be produced in cells, machines to be selected and the plans to produce the parts. The authors provide efficient column generation schemes for the linear and relaxed mixed integer programs. Examples are solved to illustrate the solution methodology. Computational experience on test problems is reported.