Procedures for the part family/machine group identification problem in cellular manufacturing

One of the first, and most important, problems faced in the design of a cellular manufacturing system is the identification of part families and machine groups and the simultaneous or subsequent evaluation of the associated cell properties. This cell formation problem is embedded in a larger cell design process. This article first discusses the general cell design process and its objectives and then proposes a framework for structuring the cell formation problem, which encompasses four basic solution approaches. These approaches are based on the fundamental ways part families and machine groups are identified and matched within the cell formation process. The framework is then used to classify descriptive and analytic procedures for the part family/machine group identification problem found in the literature. In all, over 70 such contributions are categorized and briefly reviewed. Promising procedures are identified and areas where additional research is needed are highlighted. It can be concluded that cell formation, despite the reliance on computerized procedures, is a process that is difficult to formalize and that requires a large portion of human insight and decision making.