Group Technology and Cellular Manufacturing: An Overview

Abstract Recent trends in manufacturing indicates the need for a variety of products that are to be produced in small quantities to satisfy specialised needs. This has created the need to improve productivity in small batch manufacturing. Group Technology (GT) is a manufacturing philosophy that is used to rationalize and improve the economics of small quantity batch production. Group Technology exploits the similarity between component parts, by grouping them into part families that have similarities in their shape, and therefore require the same manufacturing operations. It uses coding and classification schemes to classify parts according to their design and manufacturing similarities, so as to route them through groups of machines. These are known as manufacturing “cells”, that can perform most or all of the operations required by a part family. This concept simplifies production planning and scheduling, reduces setup times and tooling requirements, and, improves machine utilization. Several small batc...