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Cellular Versus Functional Layouts Under a Variety of Shop Operating Conditions *
Author(s) -
Shafer Scott M.,
Charnes John M.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
decision sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.238
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1540-5915
pISSN - 0011-7315
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-5915.1993.tb01297.x
Subject(s) - cellular manufacturing , queueing theory , variety (cybernetics) , computer science , process (computing) , measure (data warehouse) , industrial engineering , mathematical optimization , mathematics , artificial intelligence , engineering , operating system , data mining , computer network
This paper addresses the suitability of cellular manufacturing under a variety of operating conditions. Queueing theoretic and simulation models of cellular and functional layouts are developed for various shop operating environments to investigate several factors believed to influence the benefits associated with a cellular manufacturing layout. The queueing models show how operations overlapping, which is more practical with a cellular layout, becomes more beneficial as the lot size increases. The simulation models are developed to study the performance of cellular and functional layouts in a wide variety of operating environments by varying the levels of four factors: (1) the degree to which natural part families occur, (2) the number of operations required to process the parts, (3) the processing times of the parts at each machine, and (4) the lot size. Two response variables are used to measure shop performance: the average time spent by a batch in the system, and the average work‐in‐process level. Statistically significant reductions in the average time in the system and average work‐in‐process measures were detected for the cellular layouts in all the operating environments studied.