The American University in Cairo

Engineering Department

ENGR 548 : Facilities Planning and Design

Dr. Nahed Sobhi

Sherif Masoud
Ahmed Badr
Ahmed Abdallah
Group Technology and Facilities
Planning
Outline
 Background
 Cellular machine layout based on
Segmented Flow Topology
 Algorithms for production flow analysis
 Family-based scheduling of shops with
functional layouts
 Quantitative and qualitative indices for the
plant layout evaluation problem
Background
 Group Technology (GT) is a manufacturing
concept that uses the similarities of produced
parts in order to increase production efficiency.
 The concept of GT was originally proposed by
Mitrofanov in the book named Scientific
Principles of Group Technology that was
published in 1966.
 Cellular Manufacturing (CM) is an application of
GT concepts to factory and shop floor layout
design
Manufacturing cell
 A manufacturing cell can be defined as “an
independent group of functionally dissimilar
machines, located together on the floor,
dedicated to the manufacturing of a family of
similar parts.”(1)
 A part family can be defined as “a collection of
parts which are similar either because of
geometric shape and size or because similar
processing steps are required to manufacture
them.”(1)
Facility layout types
Applications
Machinery and machine tools
Agricultural and construction equipment
Hospital and medical equipment
Defense products
Automobiles and engines
Piece parts and components
Electronic products
Chemical equipment
Packaging industries
 Cell characteristics

Cell has a range of values for the number of people (1-6)

and workstations (1-10) and its own entrance and exit

Machines are laid out in a U-layout to simplify and

minimize material movement.

Cell does its own inspection and work scheduling.

Cell produces a family of similar parts that requires

similar machines, or workstations, in the cell.(1)
Examples of cells
1. Machining center

2. Single operator, multiple machines

3. Single- robot automated cell

4. Multiple machines, multiple operators

5. Multiple robots, automated cell

6. Assembly cell
Advantages of cells
 The tangible advantages of manufacturing cells
are due to the proximity of all machines required
to make a family of parts.(1)

 This reduces the total distance required to be

traveled by the batches of parts in the family.

 Manufacturing cells are the first step in the

implementation of Computer-Aided Design,
Computer-Aided Manufacturing, Flexible
Manufacturing Systems
Disadvantages of cells
 Need for high investment in machine installation
and re-layout

 Lack of flexibility in handling demand changes,

product mix changes, infrequent ordering of
parts, variable lo sizes

 Imbalance of utilization of machines and labor

 Lack of a comprehensive cell formation method

 Data collection and analysis is time-consuming

Methods of cell design
 Eyeballing

 Production Flow Analysis (PFA)

 Parts Classification and Coding

(C&C)
Eyeballing
 Visual inspection method is the simplest and
least expensive method.

 Classification of parts into families by looking

either at the parts themselves or their drawings
and arranging them into groups based on general
criteria

 Accuracy of grouping obtained by this method is

generally considered to be the least among the
three methods.(1)
Production Flow Analysis
 Stage 1: Factory Flow Analysis (FFA)

 Stage 2: Group Analysis (GA)

 Stage 3 : Line Analysis (LA)

 Stage 4: Tooling Analysis (TA)

Parts Classification and
Coding
 Parts Classification and Coding is a highly time-
consuming and complicated activity.

 Attributes of a part such as dimensions, shape

features, auxiliary holes, or gear teeth are
captured in a code number

 The cell for each family is identified by matching

the attributes of parts in each family to machine
capabilities
Cellular machine layout based
on Segmented Flow Topolgy
 This paper introduces a facility layout design
procedure for converting an existing
manufacturing system with a predefined aisle
structure to a cellular manufacturing system
based on the Segmented Flow Topology (SFT) .

 the best machine grouping along with the

locations of pick-up and delivery stations and
machine layout for each cell based on an existing
facility. The objective is to minimize the total
material handling cost .
Algorithms for production flow
analysis
 This paper describes a set of algorithms
which seek to automate the different
phases of analysis in this classical design
method for Cellular

 In particular, this paper describes an

enhanced machine-part matrix clustering
(MPMC) algorithm to automate the Group
Analysis phase of PFA.
Family-based scheduling of shops
with functional layouts

This study was motivated by the

case of an existing real-world semi-
conductor testing facility that has
family setups, parallel machines
and dynamic job arrival
Quantitative and qualitative indices
for the plant layout evaluation
problem

Generic approaches for developing

quantitative and qualitative indices are
provided and new indices for the flow
criterion group and environment
criterion are presented in this paper.
Thank You