Multi-dimensional Cellular Manufacturing System: A New Mathematical Model

In the past several years, many studies have been carried out on cellular manufacturing based on a two-dimensional machine-part incidence matrix. Since workers have important role in doing jobs on machines, assignment of workers to cells becomes a crucial factor for fully utilization of cellular manufacturing systems. In this paper, an attempt is made to solve cell formation problem and minimize the number of voids and exceptional elements in a three dimensional (cubic) machine-part-worker incidence matrix. The proposed mathematical model captures the capability of workers in doing different jobs. Some numerical examples are solved with LINGO Software to demonstrate validity of the proposed model.

Keywords:

Cellular manufacturing , Worker flexibility , Exceptional elements , Voids , Mathematical model