Reconfiguration of cells in flexible manufacturing systems

In flexible manufacturing cells, changes in demand, routings, processing requirements and scope of a cell may require reconfiguration in the system. In this study, an approach related to ?when? and ?how? reconfiguration is developed for existing flexible manufacturing cells. A mathematical programming model whose objective function is to minimize the total reconfiguration cost is developed to make optimal reconfiguration decisions. The developed model includes various manufacturing parameters such as parts? production volumes, alternative routings, machine capacities, processing times, additional setup times, tool types and numbers, lower and upper bounds for machine utilizations, limits on flow times of each machine, maximum cell size limit. In this study, the above-mentioned factors that require reconfiguration, these factors? effects on cells and the developed reconfiguration model are illustrated using the developed numerical examples. Also, the detailed numerical analyses for the effects of reconfiguration parameters such as limits on machine utilizations, alternative routings, maximum cell size, limits on flow times of each machine on the total reconfiguration cost are performed. All optimization runs are performed using LINGO optimization software. This study shows parts? optimum alternative routes, types and numbers of machines added to cells, types and numbers of machines removed from cells, machines? types and total numbers in cells after reconfiguration and also types and total numbers of tools on machines in cells after reconfiguration. Also, the system performance measures deteriorated because of the factors mentioned above improve after the cell?s reconfiguration in this study.