Group Technology is a very important concept in the industrial world, which carry Significant meaning in defining, rearranging and grouping the similar parts in order to have the maximum benefits of their similarity in satisfying the production process. If we look to planners and decision makers we will realize that they are using the best alternative in solving the problems by referring to similar cases that occurred before as a model.
And then we will see obviously that one solution can be used efficiently to solve a set of problems; that will lead to save money and time. By applying the fact of one solution available for group of problems to the production process we will see that Group Technology is the most beneficial method for the purpose of satisfying the manufacturing system. Rearranging and grouping is the backbone of the group technology and its applications. .
Cellular manufacturing is the main application of group technology which aim to reduce time , money and effort by reconfiguration the production system into small groups or cells , each cell can completely produce a family of parts efficiently .The main difference between the conventional type of manufacturing and CM is the way the machinery is arranged on the shop floor .
CHAPTER 2.
LAYOUT DESIGN FOR CELLULAR MANUFACTURING.
2.1 Ways to arrange Machine in a factory .
There are three basic ways arrange machine in a factory : by line , by function , and by group (Bedworth et al. 1991) .figure 1 illustrates each of these layouts. .
Line /Product layout: the machines and other work centers are arranged in the sequence in which they are used to manufacture the product. This arrangement is suitable for high volume/low variety products. .
Function /Process layout: machines of a specified type are grouped together. This layout can result in large amounts of material handling, a large amount of Work-In-Process (WIP) inventory, excessive setup times, and long manufacturing lead-time.