A comparison of selected manufacturing cell formation techniques

SUMMARY Cellular manufacturing is gaining increasing popularity as a way to quickly improve productivity and competitiveness. As a result, much research has been devoted to the development of cell formation techniques. Unfortunately, very little research has been aimed at comparing the numerous cell formation techniques available. Thus, the focus of this research is to compare selected cell formation procedures. To carry out this research, data was collected from three actual manufacturing plants. Next, the selected cell formation procedures were applied to the plants. Finally, simulation models were developed based on the cell formation procedures and evaluated on a number of performance measures.