Design of cellular manufacturing systems with labor and tools consideration

This paper proposes a new mathematical model to design cellular manufacturing systems (CMS) with the presence of alternate process plans. The model not only selects machine cells and part families but also selects tools and workers required for every manufacturing cell. The objective of the developed model is to minimize the total costs of machine installation, operations, tools and workers with a number of identified practical constraints. The resulting model is solved using LINGO software and validated using different sizes of CMS problems. Numerical examples are presented to test and demonstrate the suggested model.