The cellular manufacturing evolution

Virtual manufacturing cells: A taxonomy of past research and identification of future research issues

“…Other papers in this stream present a link with the eventual ability to move resources to accommodate to changing manufacturing requirements, i.e. the possibility to use dynamic cells (Drolet et al, 1996;Rheault et al, 1995). In this sense, VMCs are to be associated with a specific parameter range of the dynamic facility layout problem (see, for example, Balakrishnan and Cheng (1998)) i.e., when the product mix and volumes change so much relative to the costs of relocating equipment that changing the facility layout is never worth the effort.…”

A hybrid simulated annealing for solving an extended model of dynamic cellular manufacturing system

“…In studies related to the meta-heuristic applications, either the initial solution is generated randomly or is generated by a heuristic or meta-heuristic approach. There are many heuristic approaches such as multi-stage designing methods in literature can be used for generating the initial solution in CMS (Harhalakis et al, 1990;Drolet et al, 1996;Askin et al, 1997). But, these approaches highly depend on the structure and assumptions of the problem and cannot guarantee a high quality solution, especially for a complicated problem considered in this paper.…”

“…Their objectives were to minimize the sum of inventory-holding cost, group setup cost, material handling cost, and layout adjusting cost. Drolet et al (1996) proposed a fourstage methodology for designing DCMS from scheduling and operating points of view. Their objectives were to minimize the machine constant and reconfiguration costs by assuming space capacity limitation.…”

A fuzzy programming approach for a cell formation problem with dynamic and uncertain conditions

“…Their objective is to minimize inventory and holding costs, group setup cost, material handling cost, and layout adjusting cost. Drolet et al [8] proposed a four-stage procedure for designing DCMSs from the scheduling and operating points of view, with objective of minimizing machine constant and reconfiguration costs by a constraint on space capacity. Marcoux et al [16] showed that DCMSs are more efficient than the classical CMSs in terms of throughput time, machine utilization, and work-in-process (WIP) criteria.…”

“…Rheault et al [17] introduced movable workstations as an alternative in a virtual CMS (VCMS), in which workstations can be relocated in order to form new cells. Drolet et al [8] pointed out that most workstations are movable in small make-to-order and subcontracting manufacturing systems. Some of these workstations are assembly tables, small machining devices, general purpose equipment, control stations, and the like.…”