Evaluation of cellular manufacturing configurations in dynamic conditions using simulation

This paper investigates the performance of classical cellular manufacturing systems compared to other two systems proposed in literature: fractal cells and remainder cells. This paper proposes three strategies to control a cellular manufacturing system with remainder cell and how to configure and control a fractal manufacturing system. The performance measures of the manufacturing systems are analyzed when several unforeseen events occur as: machine breakdowns, production mix changes, demand fluctuations, and processing time variability. A simulation environment developed by Arena® package was used to investigate the three manufacturing system configurations. The performance measures investigated are: throughput, throughput times of the parts, work in process, manufacturing utilization, and due date performance (tardiness). The simulation results show how the fractal and remainder cells can be a valid alternative to cellular manufacturing systems in a very dynamic environment.