Ex-CLASS: Extended Cell formation and LAyout Selection considering production parameters with Sequence data

The design of a Cellular Manufacturing System (CMS) often involves three major decisions: cell formation, facility layout within the cells and cell layout within the system. Ideally, these decisions should be addressed in order to obtain the complete result. A large number of papers on cell formation and layout design have been published so far, but very few of them have considered these objectives simultaneously. Consideration of important production parameters like operation sequence, production volume and batch size make the cell formation problem complex but more realistic. In this paper, a solution methodology has been developed that identifies part families/machine grouping and also provides amicable intercell/intracell facility layout design. The computational procedure of the algorithm has been illustrated by an example. Numerical results indicate that the proposed methodology is flexible and efficient. Further, it also points to the untapped potential of such an approach to solve CMS design and layout problems using sequence data.