• Design of physical layout of cells (inter-cell) and
other departments. For heuristic inter-cell design,
the following factors were considered:
• In each cell, alternative machines, which are
used by certain job types that are normally
processed in other cells, were located in a
way that will make them easily accessible by
those job types.
• Necessary changes were made according to
group technology layout (e.g. relocation of
forklift and raw material areas, receiving/shipping areas).
2.3 Simulation Modeling & Analysis of
the New System (GT Layout)
In GT layout, jobs are still produced in batches. Batches are
produced according to their operation sequences, which are
determined based on job types. In the new system, there was
no change related with machine specifications. Assumptions
for the model of the new system are as follows:
• Cell 1, 2, and 3 are dedicated to the production of
certain job types. But, inter-cell flows are allowed
for certain job types because of insufficient number of machines.
• Even though the new system is based on GT layout, some alternative machines are used interchangeably for certain operations of certain job
types to prevent machines from being idle when
there are some jobs waiting to be processed.
• The distances are taken as 0 between sequential
machines (stations).