A simulation study of focused cellular manufacturing as an alternative batch-processing layout

This paper is aimed at studying focused cellular manufacturing (FCM). We define FCM as a layout scheme that groups components by end-items and forms cells of machines to fabricate and assemble end-items. It is not classified as a cellular manufacturing layout since it does not attempt to take advantage of process similarities. It also is not classified as a flow shop since there are no machines dedicated to individual operations and the machines are not arranged in a series. The results indicate that the FCM scheme has a batching advantage (i.e., it has to wait less time to batch components before assemble). This advantage dominated the balanced machine utilization benefit of the job shop (JS) layout scheme. The JS was only able to overcome the batching advantage when there were small batch sizes or large setup time magnitudes. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.