Research on Manufacturing Process Based Product-family Forming

Traditional approach for product family forming is based cell manufacturing system and design/product structure oriented. In this paper, an innovative methodology for product family forming is presented to effectively cope with customized demand. The methodology is designed under product-family specific production line (PFPL) environment and the criteria for product family forming are based on manufacturing characteristics of the products. The presented methodology starts with define different kinds of product similarities, then these similarities are calculated and synthesized. The whole forming process is described with data example.