A comprehensive approach to operation sequence similarity based part family formation in the reconfigurable manufacturing system

The industrial sector of the twenty-first century faces a highly volatile market in which manufacturing systems must be capable of responding rapidly to the market changes, while fully exploiting resources. The reconfigurable manufacturing system (RMS) is a state of the art technology offering the exact functionality and capacity needed, which is built around a part family. The configuration of an RMS evolves over a period to justify the needs of upcoming part families. The foundation for the success of an RMS, therefore, lies in the recognition of appropriate sets of part families. In the present work the authors have developed a novel operation sequence based BMIM (bypassing moves and idle machines) similarity coefficient using longest common subsequence (LCS) and the minimum number of bypassing moves and the quantity of idle machines. The effectiveness of the developed similarity coefficient has been compared with the existing best similarity/dissimilarity coefficients available in the existing literature. An example set of parts has been classified using the developed similarity coefficient and average linkage hierarchical clustering algorithm. The developed approach can also be used very effectively for part family formation in the cellular manufacturing system.

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