Investigation of the impact of uncertainty factors on performance of cellular and functional manufacturing systems: A simulation study

Abstract

Layout decision is an important part of designing and operation of a manufacturing system. In the past decades, there has been various studies which focused on comparing functional and cellular layouts, however they have paid little attention to the effect of impacting factors such as uncertainties in demand and resources. In this research, a furniture manufacturing study case is designed to showcase the manufacturing system properties within three domains: product, machine and workers. Elements of the model such as machine/part matrix, parts’ operation sequences, worker assignment and more are presented according to the characteristics of each layout and incorporated into a simulation software. Simulation is used particularly in designing and evaluating the performance of the manufacturing systems with stochastic properties. Multiple scenarios under the three uncertainty factors: “demand fluctuations”, “machine failure” and “worker absence” are proposed and the results for main performance metrics such as order completion time, work in progress and machine and worker utilization rates for cellular and functional layouts are compared together in order to provide recommendations for this important decision under the circumstances.