| dc.description.abstract | This dissertation presents the configuration and capacity management of manufacturing cells using cluster analysis. A heuristic based on cluster analysis is developed to solve cell formation in cellular manufacturing systems (CMS). The clustering heuristic is applied for cell formation considering processing requirement (CFOPR) as well as various manufacturing factors (CFVMF). The proposed clustering heuristic is developed by employing a new solving structure incorporating hierarchical and non-hierarchical clustering methods. A new similarity measure is constructed by modifying the Jarccard similarity and a new assignment algorithm is proposed by employing the new pairwise exchange method. In CFOPR, the clustering heuristic is modified by adding a feedback step and more exact allocation rules. Grouping efficacy is employed as a measure to evaluate solutions obtained from the heuristic. The clustering heuristic for CFOPR was evaluated on 23 test problems taken from the literature in order to compare with other approaches and produced the best solution in 18 out of 23 and the second best in the remaining problems. These solutions were obtained in a considerably short time and even the largest test problem was solved in around one and a half seconds. In CFVMF, the machine capacity was first ensured, and then manufacturing cells were configured to minimize intercellular movements. In order to ensure the machine capacity, the duplication of machines and the split of operations are allowed and operations are assigned into duplicated machines by the largest-first rule. The clustering heuristic for CFVMF proposes a new similarity measure incorporating processing requirement, material flow and machine workload and a new machine-part matrix representing material flow and processing time assigned to multiple identical machines. Also, setup time, which has not been clearly addressed in existing research, is discussed in the solving procedure. The clustering heuristic for CFVMF employs two evaluation measures such as the number of intercellular movements and grouping efficacy. In two test problems taken from the literature, the heuristic for CFVMF produced the same results, but the trade-off problem between the two evaluation measures is proposed to consider the goodness of grouping. | en |
