Manufacturing cell formation under probabilistic product mix

Changes in environment badly affect the performance of the cellular manufacturing system (CMS). Changes in environment are generally reflected in the demand of the items, which are produced in the CMS. The variation in demand can be characterised probabilistically. Two ways of characterisation of this demand are discrete random product mix and random product demand. This paper suggests that, a better CMS design will be obtained if the design is prepared for an expected scenario of the production system when the system is subjected discrete random product mix. The expected inter-cell traffic when this design is subjected to all scenarios will be better than the expected inter-cell traffic of a good design of a scenario when applied to all scenarios. The inputs for the design of CMS are machine sequence for the various items (component, subassembly or assembly) used in the product, product structure and demand of product.