Software for Manufacturing Cell Formation: Issues and Experiences

The Cell formation problem in Group Technology (GT)/ Cellular Manufacturing Systems (CMS) is being researched for the past forty years and many solution methodologies have been developed for solving this "hard" problem. One of the areas where there is little progress is in software development for cell formation. A software provides an opportunity to appropriately apply theoretical algorithms to meet practical requirements in cell formation. In practice the degree of completion is more important than maximizing similarity of parts. Inter-cell moves have to be calculated in terms of percentage volume of work carried in other cells as against number of exceptions. It is also important that user has options such as number of cells, cell size and budget restriction (for purchasing new machines). Further it is necessary to provide unconstrained solutions that act as starting point in cell formation. We have developed MASCOT, a windows based software for cell formation considering the above issues. It is currently undergoing tests using real-life data. This paper addresses various issues in cell formation to be considered in developing software and presents experiences on the development, testing and implementation of the software.