A basic study on autonomous characterization of square array machining cells for agile manufacturing

Abstract

In this study, a manufacturing system locating machining cells in a square array is considered as an agile manufacturing system that can manufacture a variety of kinds of products with varying volumes. Each cell can process any work whose machining operations for each work are divided into some operation groups common to all works. An auction-based algorithm is proposed to select a cell to process a work after its processing of one operation group. Five types of bid are considered and their effects on the characterization of cells, i.e., concentration on the processing of specific work kinds and operation groups, are investigated.