A mathematical programming model for system reconfiguration in a dynamic cellular manufacturing environment

In a dynamic manufacturing environment, manufacturing cell configurations based on current part mix and production process may need to be revised once the part mix or the production process has changed. However, machine and equipment moving costs make frequent reconfiguration uneconomical and sometimes impossible. Designing a sustainable cellular manufacturing system in a dynamic environment is studied in this paper. An integer programming model is developed to minimize material handling and machine costs as well as cell reconfiguration cost for a planning horizon of multiple time periods. Solving this integer programming problem is NP-complete. A decomposition approach is developed so that the decomposed subproblems can be solved with less computational effort. Dynamic programming is then employed to find a solution of the original problem. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the model and the solution technique developed in this paper.