Concurrent engineering framework for designing cellular manufacturing systems

Present cell formation algorithms take into consideration manufacturing costs such as material handling costs, fixturing and refixturing costs, machine costs, and processing costs among others. However, all the cell formation algorithms use a sequential approach to the production of new parts: first parts are designed and tolerances are allocated considering assembly requirements, and then, using this design information, cells are formed. Thus tolerance setting takes into consideration the costs related to the production process, but disregards all costs related to the production system. In this paper, we propose a concurrent engineering approach to integrate the issues of engineering design, production process and production system, in order to achieve an overall optimum. For this purpose, a mathematical model is presented to help achieve such an integration. An example is included to illustrate the concepts.