The cellular manufacturing evolution

Since its introduction, the cellular manufacturing concept has considerably evolved. In the last few years, two new paradigms that inherit from the cellular manufacturing concept have been developed. These new paradigms consist of exploiting the potential offered by a virtual cellular organization and a dynamic cellular organization. These paradigms are a natural evolution of contemporary cellular manufacturing systems actually implemented in world-class factories all over the globe. The virtual cellular manufacturing concept and the dynamic cellular manufacturing concept permit gains both in terms of performance and flexibility by capitalizing on the advances in computer science and information technology. This paper aims at presenting these new organization paradigms. To do so, it focuses on exposing their fundamental roots, then it studies critical elements associated to the design and management of these systems. Even though the paradigms of virtual and dynamic cellular organizations are in their early infancy, research being conducted tend to indicate that these new organization paradigms may be a serious rival to the classical cellular organization.