Problem of classification of product family for reconfigurable manufacturing systems

Product family model is a key support technology for an effective working of Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems.In RMSs,products are grouped into families,each of which required a system configuration.We presented a methodology of formation of the set of product families,which took into account the parameters and index of product such as modularity,commonality,compatibility,reusability,and demand,and calculated,for each parameters and index,the matrixes that summarized the similarity between pairs of products.Then through the use of the AHP methodology,a unique matrix that comprised the similarity values between products was obtained.The Average Linkage Clustering algorithm was applied to this matrix in order to obtain a dendogram that showed the diverse sets of product families that might be formed and was based on the similarity between pairs of products.At last,a case is introduced to illustrate the feasibility and the effectiveness of this method.