The connected cells represent a continuous flow where the products enter the cells in the manufacturing area, complete the machining operations and exit through the corresponding assembly and packaging area after completion of the assembly and packaging operations. In other words, the output of a cell in the manufacturing area becomes the input to the corresponding cell in the assembly and packaging area. The biggest advantage of connected cells is that material flow is smoother and hence flowtime is expected to be shorter. This is also expected to result in lower WIP inventory. This paper focuses on a cellular manufacturing system similar to the system shown in Figure 1. There are three cells in the manufacturing area and three cells in the assembly and packaging area. In these cells, M1 through M3 represent the machines in the manufacturing area, A1, A2 and P1 through P3 represent the machines in the assembly and packaging area. The products essentially follow a unidirectional flow. The three cells in manufacturing area are similar since they have similar machines and all the products can be manufactured in any of the cells. However, the situation gets complicated in the assembly and packaging area. The three cells have restrictions in terms of the products that they can process. Therefore, deciding which manufacturing cell a product should be assigned is dictated by the packaging cell(s) it can be processed later on. This constraint makes the manufacturing system less flexible.
Connected cells