A method of identifying suitable manufacturing system (Cellular) for automotive sector using Analytical Hierarchy Process

Manufacturing produces real wealth for any country and constitutes the back bone for the service sector. The objective of any organization is to earn profit. Usually the market fixes the selling price of the manufactured components. Unless there is focus on the manufacturing strategy of reducing manufacturing cost, it is very difficult to sustain in this ever competitive world. A suitable manufacturing system will help in minimizing the cost of production. The suitable manufacturing system should focus on customer satisfaction by finding out the customer’s requirement in terms of quantity, quality, and schedule. A survey of existing literature on evaluation of advanced manufacturing systems indicates that the traditional manufacturing approaches are inadequate for the purpose. Typically new technologies require very high investments, so it is important to identify and justify the manufacturing system suitable for the particular manufacturing industry. In this paper an attempt has been made to overcome the deficiencies of traditional manufacturing system by presenting an approach to determine and account for the justification of the cellular manufacturing system using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP).