International Journal of Industrial

Engineering & Technology (IJIET)

ISSN(P): 2277-4769; ISSN(E): 2278-9456
Vol. 4, Issue 5, Oct 2014, 1-10
TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.

IMPLEMENTING CELLULAR MANUFACTURING AT A PUBLIC SECTOR AVIATION

COMPANY: COMPARING TWO CELL FORMATION METHODS
RAJENDRA GOWDA1 & SANJAY KUMAR2
1
2

Senior Manager, HAL, Bangalore, Karnataka, India

Professor, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, Haryana, India

ABSTRACT
The paper describes the attempts of a public sector aviation company to implement cellular manufacturing at its
machine shop (E) which manufactured 130 components for aircraft door assembly for Boeing and Airbus. The managers
were informed about various existing cell formation methods, but chose two methods the Product Flow Analysis (PFA)
with a key machine approach, and the Rank Order Clustering method using Kings Algorithm. Both methods were applied
and the shops 130 components and 96 machines were grouped into part families and machine groups. The two methods
were evaluated on material flow distance criteria, for 10 part family groups. The cell structure suggested by Rank Order
Clustering performed better for more part family groups than PFA method. But the managerial decision making actually
involved more variables than used by the above methods. The decision parameters on the basis of which, the managers
decided to use a modified Rank Order Clustering grouping, is also described in the paper.

KEYWORDS: Cell Formation, Product Flow Analysis, Key Machine Approach, Rank Order Clustering, Flow Distance
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The paper deals with the implementation of cellular manufacturing at a machine shop (E) at an Indian Aviation
major. The machine shop (E) was manufacturing front passenger door assembly for Airbus, over wing door assembly and
cargo door assembly for Boeing. Orders had grown rapidly in recent years, thus constraining capacity. The implementation
of cellular manufacturing was expected to release additional capacity so that the new orders could be executed in the same
shop. The paper describes the choice of cell formation method by the executives of the company, and the issues which
impacted the decision related to cell formation criteria. The strong preferences of the executives for an intuitive and simple
method was evident in the initial screening. The executives chose a Product Flow Analysis Method with a key machine
approach initially. They were motivated by the authors to choose a more sophisticated method for cell formation, and they
chose the Rank Order Clustering method. (King, 1980) The results were compared by the managers and the final decision
is described in the paper. The paper is laid out as follows: a brief literature review of cell formation methods is presented in
section 2. Section 3 describes the problem context, the methodology and the application of the two chosen cell formation
methods to the problem context. The results and the decision description are presented in section 4.

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

Various cell formation methods have been proposed for cell formation in cellular manufacturing. The frequency
of papers related to cell formation methods increased since the 1980s when lean manufacturing became more popular.
The initial algorithms for cell formation have focused on product families and machine groupings based on various

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Rajendra Gowda & Sanjay Kumar

criteria.(Burbidge, 1975) Amongst the early methods for cell formation is the Rank Order Clustering method proposed by
King (1980). A direct clustering method was proposed by Chan and Milner (1982). Wemmerlov and Hyer (1986) have
listed and classified 70 contributions to cell formation methods. The original criteria for evaluation emphasized material
movement distance, average work in progress inventory, average flow time and number of extra cellular operations. Shafer
and Meredith (1990) compared eight cell formation methods and applied them to three real life situations in three
companies. The resulting layouts were evaluated on various parameters and the criteria for evaluation used were average
flow time, maximum flow time, average distance travelled, number of extra cellular operations, average work in process
inventory, and longest average queue. The authors found that some methods performed even worse than functional layouts.
Most cell formation however performed better than functional layouts on the above metrics.
Since no clear winner emerged in the research on cell formation methods, the researchers looked into other
criteria for evaluation of cell formation methods. Kandiller (1994) proposed a few more metrics related to under utilization
of machines in cells, work load balance and modified grouping efficiency. This modified grouping efficiency allows the
manager to select if inner cell density or inter cell flow is more important as a parameter, and the cell formation is done
accordingly. Based on these criteria Kandiller compared six cell formation methods. He also suggested the use of multicriteria measures for selecting an appropriate cell formation method, while focusing on ease of implementation of the
designed cells.
Olorumiwo and Udo (1996) have explored cell design practices in US manufacturing firms. They report that most
practitioners do not favour complex mathematical models for cell formation. The general perception of managers is that the
mathematical models do not capture a large number of variables into model, hence the results are neither intuitive nor easy
to implement. They report that most US firms use informal procedures for cell formation such as coding and classification
procedures, or a key machine approach. They have classified the cell formation procedures into 10 categories as given in
table 1
Table 1: Cell Formation Methods as Classified by Olorumiwo and Udo (1996)
Cell Formation
Method (CFM1)
CFM 2
CFM 3
CFM 4
CFM 5
CFM 6
CFM 7
CFM 8
CFM 9
CFM 10

Informal Procedures to Form Cells (Judgement and Visual Examination)

Coding and Classification
Key machine approach
Machine grouping by similar part routing (part family)
Machine grouping by using machine similarity
Part family by using part similarities
Manual re-arrangements of part / machine matrices to identify part families and
machine groups
Algorithmic arrangement of part -machine matrix part identify part families and
machine group
Naturally apparent product line/ family based on sub assemblies/ components
the firm produces
Simulation methods

The authors reported that visual methods and key machine approach and their combinations, accounted for about
30% of the reported methods for cell formation. A few plants reported the use of part machine matrix to identify part
families. Product flow analysis (PFA), machine grouping and part family approaches are the next most popular approaches
used by US manufacturing firms. (Burbidge, 1975)

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.3857

Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0

Implementing Cellular Manufacturing at a Public Sector Aviation

Company: Comparing Two Cell Formation Methods

Methods based upon the machinepart incidence matrix include the Direct Clustering Algorithm (Chan and
Milner, 1982), Rank Order Clustering (King 1980), MODROC (Chandrasekharan and Rajagopalan 1986), ZODIAC
(Chandrasekharan and Rajagopalan 1987), GRAFICS (Srinivasan and Narendran 1991) and the Close Neighbor Algorithm
(Boe and Cheng, 1991). Unfortunately, these methods did not always produce solutions with the desired diagonal structure
(Hicks 2004).
Methods based upon similarity coefficients provided an alternative approach for both part family grouping and
machine grouping. A number of similarity and dissimilarity coefficients between parts and/or machines have been
proposed for grouping part families and/or machine cells.
Though various similarity coefficients have been proposed, no particular similarity coefficient is effective in all
situations. (Hicks 2004).
The turn of the century saw the use of more variables to model the problem, as production efficiencies, machine
utilization and performance under various conditions (such as varying demand, product variety and change in set up /
processing times) became the norm. The optimization of the cell formation problem (CFP) was shown to be a
nondeterministic polynomial (NP) complete problem (Dimopoulos and Zalzala 2000).
Papaioannou and Wilson (Papaioannou and Wilson, 2010), provide a survey of the different techniques used to
solve the problem and classify the different solution techniques as follows:

Cluster Analysis: Techniques for recognizing structure in a data set.

Graph Partitioning Approaches: Where a graph or a network representation is used to formulate the cell
formation problem.

Mathematical Programming Methods: The cell formation problem is formulated like a non-linear or linear
integer programming problem.

Heuristic, Meta-Heuristic and Hybrid Meta-Heuristic: The most popular methods are: simulated annealing,
tabu search, genetic algorithms, swarm colony optimization, neural networks and fuzzy theory.
Stochastic search methods were found to be particularly suitable for solving complex combinatorial optimization

problems. They were able to search large regions of the solution space without becoming trapped in local optima.
Commonly used methods included Genetic Algorithms, Tabu search and Simulated Annealing. Genetic Algortithms (GAs)
were derived from an analogy with biological evolution, in which the fitness of an individual determines its ability to
survive and reproduce. (Rajagopalan and Fonsecad, 2006) Falkenauer developed a Grouping Genetic Algorithm (GGA)
that suited the structure of grouping problems which was improved by Tunnukij and Hicks (Tunnukij and Hicks, 2009).
Ghosh et al (Ghosh et al, 2010), provide a survey of various genetic algorithms used to solve the cell formation problem.
The success of genetic algorithms in solving this problem induced researchers to consider different variants and hybrids in
order to generate very robust techniques. Recently Elbenani and Ferland (2012) have proposed a linear binary
programming formulation to generate an exact solution for the cell formation problem with a reasonable efficiency.

3.0 PROBLEM DESCRIPTION AND METHODOLOGY

The machine shop (E) identified for cellular manufacturing supplies parts to Sub Assemblies to Airbus, Boeing,

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Rajendra Gowda & Sanjay Kumar

and the Dornier cargo aircraft. A total of 130 critical components are made in-house in the shop. However since orders for
four components are very infrequent, only 126 components have been considered for cell formation. The existing layout is
shown in figure 1. These components were processed on 96 machines in the shop. To design cells, the following two
methodologies were used:

Product Flow Analysis with key machine approach

Rank Order Clustering

The application of the Product Flow Analysis methodology is described in section 3a. and the Rank Order

Clustering Method is described in section 3b. 3a. The Product Flow Analysis (with key machine approach)
The PFA Algorithm (Key Machine Approach)
Step 1: Read the incidence matrix and compute the frequency for each machine.
Step 2: Choose the machine with the lowest non-zero frequency as the nucleus. Form modules by including the
components that require the nucleus machine and the other machines needed to make these components.
Step 3: Repeat Step 2 till no nucleus machine can be found.
Step 4: Merge modules if machine set for one is a subset of another.
Step 5: Make modifications to the solution in Step 4 to suitably reduce the number of groups causing inter-cell moves.

Figure 1: Existing Process Based Layout of Machine Shop (E) at Leading Aircraft Manufacturer
The key machine approach (as described above) has been followed by the managers of the machine shop (E) and
is described in detail below:
The part component list as drawn up for machine shop (E) is given below. This is followed by the machine part
list as shared below.
Table 2: Machines List
S.
No
1
2
3
4
5

Type of Machine

Work Centre No

No. of Machines

Honing Machine
Sensitive Drilling Machine
Radial Drilling Machine
Horizontal Milling Machine ML
Horizontal Milling Machine HL

20561
20273
20261
20322
20302

1
1
5
4
2

Impact Factor (JCC): 4.3857

Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0

Implementing Cellular Manufacturing at a Public Sector Aviation

Company: Comparing Two Cell Formation Methods

6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
21
22
23
24
25
26
26
27

Table 2: Contd.,
Horizontal Milling Machine
20320
Vertical Milling Machine ML
20312
Vertical Milling Machine HL
20311
Vertical Milling Machine
20394
DNC vertical milling machine
30209
Starrag Copy milling machine
20371 20381
Profile milling machine
20340
Capstan Lathe
20131 20132
Turret Lathe
20120
Drum Type Turret Lathe
20121
Horizontal Boring Machine
20200
Boring Machine
20221
Fine Boring Machine
20220
Thread Rolling Machine
20650
Centreless Grinding Machine
20451
NC Grinder
20443
Cylindrical Grinder
20441 20422
Plain Grinder
20403
NC Lathe
20180
Centre Lathe Medium Long
20102
CNC Lathe
20192 20190 20191
CNC Grinder
Cold saw cutting
20966
Copying Lathe

1
1
4
2
1
2
2
2
3
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
9
5
1
1
1

Table 3: Module Machine Part List (With Subsets)

Modules
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18

Initial Set of Machine Part Combinations

Machines
No of Components
1,2,3,8,11,13,20,22
1
7,8,10,16,17,18,19,20,21
2
1,2,3,4,5,6,12
2
8,10,16,19,20
2
1,2,3,4,7,8,9,13,17
5
1,2,3,4,5,8,12,16,22
6
1,3,4,8,10,14,16,17,20,21,22
8
1,2,3,5,8,13,17,20,21,22
7
1,2,3,4,5,8,9,13,14,15,16,17,20,22
8
1,2,3,4,5,8,9,15
8
1,2,3,4,5,16,20,22
9
1,2,3,4,8,9,22
3
1,3,4,8,9,15,16,17,20,22
6
1,8,9,15,16,17,20,22
11
1,3,8,9,16,17,20,22
10
8,16,17,20,22
7
1,3,8,16,20,22
10
1,8,20
11

Identified Subsets

Subsets 1

Subset 2
Subset 2

This machine part list was further refined and a set of 13 modules were obtained such that there were no modules
which were subset of other modules. This final list of 13 modules was obtained. In Table 3, some of the subsets are shown,
and these are used to reduce the number of modules to 13.

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3 B. Rank Order Cluster Method (Kings Algorithm)

Machine part incidence matrix was created for PFA is used to identify part family components and based on that
group of components identified as part family is made Module. Finally, 17 Modules were identified and part indices
common to family were taken to create incidence Matrix. A snap shot is shown below

Figure 2: Snapshot of Machine Incidence

Later, kings Algorithm is applied to create Cells. A snap shot is shown below after the first iteration.

Figure 3: Kings Algorithm Rank Order Clustering Worksheet

Finally six cell groups were obtained from the Rank Order Clustering method. These were then compared with
other methods and the flow distance of material flow was considered for these modules. The results are discussed in
section 4.

4.0 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The three layouts are given below i. e. functional layout, the PFA cell formation layout and the Rank Order
Clustering (Kings) algorithm layout. For ease of calculation, the 126 parts were clubbed into 10 modules using Part Flow
Analysis and clubbing the components into part families. 10 such part families were identified and the flow distance was
measured for each part family in each layout. The details are given in Table 4 below
Table 4
Modules
(Part Family)
2
4
5
6
7
Impact Factor (JCC): 4.3857

Present Set-Up
Functional (Meters)
142
98
98
90
98

PFA Method
(Meters)
88
48
76
66
76

ROC Method
(Meters)
114
58
38
48
38
Index Copernicus Value (ICV): 3.0

Implementing Cellular Manufacturing at a Public Sector Aviation

Company: Comparing Two Cell Formation Methods

8
9
13
14
16

Table 4: Contd.,
78
50
76
136
152

38
39
48
98
116

36
36
44
92
110

As can be seen from the above table, the PFA (Key Machine Approach) method and the Rank Order Clustering
methods have been considered. The rank order clustering method performs better in eight part groups (part families) and
the Product Flow Analysis (Key Machine Approach) performs better for two product families.
Thus the managers were requested to implement the results of the Rank Order Clustering method as the results for
the method were much better.
The Implementation Decision

Figure 4: Cell Formation Decision Factors Considered by the Managers

However the managers were reluctant to implement the Rank Order Clustering solution. They were asked about
the parameters which affected their decision about the cell design for cellular manufacturing. The key considerations are
given in Figure 4. The balancing of Takt times on each operation in the cell and balancing it with the demand was a key
consideration. Takt time balancing was also a consideration for creation of additional processing capacity.
Beyond this, the managers were worried about worker union agreement and training for multi skilling. For cell
formation, cell / machine loading and special items were a consideration- specially when cell formation did not cover
crucial operations. Demand and material flow planning were other considerations in cell formation.
The managers felt that key machine approach favoured the cell creation around more expensive equipment, and
hence the utilization of key machines would be higher. Thus even though flow distance was less for most modules, in Rank
Order Clustering, the managers felt that the process did not differentiate between costlier and critical processes and less
important ones.
Since the demand pattern was changing, the managers were prone to look at emerging demand for cell design and
planning, rather existing demand only. Similarly, rationalization of labor was not a consideration, since the demand
fluctuations were large. The fear amongst managers was that the cellular manufacturing system may not be able to cope
with varying demand efficiently.
Finally the managers decided to go with a modified version of the cell formation suggested by Rank Order
Clustering, after adjusting for better utilization of some costly machines. The focus now shifted immediately to worker
training on MOST techniques (Maynard Operations Sequencing Techniques), cycle time balancing and reduction of set up
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Rajendra Gowda & Sanjay Kumar

times. Change in component movement and loading, re-designing the material movement were also key considerations in
the implementation. At the time of closure of the study, negotiations had been initiated with the worker unions for the
planned changes.

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Company: Comparing Two Cell Formation Methods

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