Dynamic cellular manufacturing system (DCMS)

This paper presents a dynamic cellular manufacturing system (DCMS) that sustains the turbulent environment of small make-to-order manufacturers and subcontractors. The DCMS exploits the workstation moveableness to reconfigure the cells. The system is composed of 4 modules; loading and routing module, dynamic cell configurator, scheduling module and system monitoring. The core of the DCMS is the cost based algorythm for dynamic cell configuration, its decision criteria are exclusively economic and aim at minimizing the overall cost for transfering unit loads and relocating workstations.