INVESTIGATION INTO THE IMPACT OF LAYOUT FLEXIBILITY AND PRODUCTION VOLUME ON THE PERFORMANCE OF A MANUFACTURING CELL

Abstract

As many manufacturing industries are turning towards cellular manufacturing from job -shops and flow lines, this study focuses on one of the most important problems in establishing a cellular manufacturing system, which, are ' cell layout and material handling configuration, these two are most important decisions to be taken, and are often irreversible in nature. This- study analyses and compares three variants of a manufacturing cell layout in increasing order of flexibility considering various layout configurations in cellular manufacturing environment. This study also presents a framework for defining and identifying sources of layout flexibility for mapping different dimensions of flexibility to specific layout configurations. The study employs simulation modeling as the primary tool to analyze and compare where input parameters like arrival quantities, No. of AGV's can be changed easily so as to know the effects on key performance measures of a manufacturing cell, i. e. manufacturing lead time, percentage utilization of machines, percentage utilization of AGV's, and total batch completion time for different part families, average Work-in-process levels, was studied. The simulation model developed was validated through traces generated during run time for each simulation