2.2.2 Layout Design
Here, cells were considered as job shop cells because of
the following reasons:
• It is very difficult to balance workloads between
sequential machines to provide smooth flow within
a cell because operation and setup times can vary
from job to job.
• Operation sequences are not same for all jobs
produced in the same cell. In other words, each
job type requires different set of machines along
its operation sequence.
• The monthly demand for each job type has a fluctuating pattern.
As explained in this section, layout design phase were
conducted in two sequential phases:
• Design of the physical layout of machines (intracell). CRAFT algorithm was used to obtain the final layouts of three cells. Result was a layout for
each cell that can not be further improved upon by
exchanging machines.