Verifying the design of a cellular manufacturing system

This paper reports a simulation study to evaluate the design of a cellular layout for the production of low volume, high variety of products. The study aims to better understand the production capacity and the potential problems that may arise in the future when more products variety are introduced at smaller quantities. The model was built using a commercial tool but the simulation parameters are stored in a spreadsheet allowing much simpler coding of the routing logic and the data input. The experiments were carried out to reduce bottleneck and to investigate the effect of different batch sizes, machine breakdown and scrap, to the performance of the cellular layout.