A queuing theory-based approach to designing cellular manufacturing systems

This paper presents a new cell formation and cell layout problem considering multiple process routings and subcontracting using the principles of queuing theory. It was assumed that each machine operated as an M=M=1 queuing system and a queuing network was used to obtain in-process inventories and machine utilization. The problem was formulated as a mixed-integer nonlinear program with the objective of minimizing the total costs, including the production, subcontracting, material handling, machine idleness, and holding costs. Due to the computational complexity of the problem, a heuristic method is suggested to eectively solve the problem. A numerical example is given to clarify the proposed approach, and nally, further instances are solved to verify the performance of the solution method and to accomplish comparisons. The computational results show that the proposed heuristic is both eective and ecient.