Multi-period cell loading and cell size determination

This paper focuses on simultaneous solution of cell loading and cell size determination in labor intensive manufacturing cells. The study performed is a multi-period analysis where decisions are made for next several periods. The objective is to maximize the number of products that can be completed with the available capacity in all of the periods considered. A two-phase solution methodology is proposed. In the first phase, alternative cell sizes are generated for various manpower levels and optimal manpower allocation is performed. In the second phase, two mathematical models are proposed to perform cell loading and determine the cell size simultaneously.