A comprehensive mathematical model for the design of cellular manufacturing systems

The design of cellular manufacturing systems (CMS) involves many structural and operational issues. One of the important design steps is the formation of part families and machine cells. In this paper, a comprehensive mathematical model for the design of CMS based on tooling requirements of the parts and tooling available on the machines is proposed. The model incorporates dynamic cell configuration, alternative routings, lot splitting, sequence of operations, multiple units of identical machines, machine capacity, workload balancing among cells, operation cost, cost of subcontracting part processing, tool consumption cost, setup cost, cell size limits, and machine adjacency constraints. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the model and its potential benefits.