A methodology for integrating cell formation and production planning in cellular manufacturing

This paper develops a mathematical model for designing cells which can handle time-varying part demands. This is primarily carried out by simultaneously identifying cells and part production plans. Given the computational complexity of the model, we first evaluate the efficacy of several alternative lower bounding methods. Based on these methods, we develop multiple heuristic procedures and evaluate them using published and industry data. The results indicate that a lower bounding scheme using valid inequalities provides strong lower bounds for our model and that the heuristic provides solutions which are near-optimal.