Mounir Elleuch,doctor engineer in Mechanical Engineering, is an assistant Professor at higher institute of industrial management of Sfax in Tunisia (ISGI). Researcher at the Electro-Mechanical System Laboratory (LASEM) at National Engineering School of Sfax (University of Sfax - Tunisia). His research focuses on the application of simulation to analysis and control manufacturing systems and on the maintenance management.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to illustrate a solution that can be used to reduce the severity of breakdowns and improve performances in the cellular manufacturing (CM) system with unreliable machines.
The performance of CM system is conditioned by disruptive events, such as the failure of machines, which randomly occurs and penalizes the performance of the cells, seriously disturbing the smooth working of the factory. To overcome the problem caused by the breakdowns, the authors develop a solution, based on the principle of virtual cell and the notion of intercellular transfer that can improve the availability of the system. In this context, the use an analytical method based on Markov chains to model the availability of the cell. The results are validated using simulation.
The proposed solution in this paper confirmed that it is possible to reduce the severity of breakdowns in the CM system and improve the availability of the cells through an intercellular transfer created at the time of a breakdown. Simulation allowed a validation of the analytical model and showed the contribution of the suggested solution.
The developed approach studies the performance of the production cells formed by unreliable machines. It uses the notion of the intercellular transfer to improve the availability of the cells.
Abstract: This paper describes the development of a simulation study to
reduce the effect of failure in cellular manufacturing with the use of a
maintenance policy. It analyses the effects of corrective, preventive and
opportunistic maintenance policies on the performance of a manufacturing cell.
We consider the productivity of the cell as performance criteria, and we study
the cell performance under different times between failure distributions and
different operational conditions. A simulation model was established in Arena
simulation software. The results are compared to determine the best policy for a
given system.
Abstract: Cellular manufacturing is an application of a group technology used to improve the
performance of manufacturing systems. A number of factors, including vulnerability to
machine breakdown, under utilization of resources and eventual unbalanced workload
distribution in a multi-cell plan disturb the smooth working of the factory when using the
group technology concept.
This paper focuses on a manufacturing cell composed of unreliable machines. We are
interested in the problem of cell production availability facing unexpected circumstances due
to an internal perturbation caused by machine breakdown. We consider a policy of
intercellular transfer in the event of breakdown to improve the availability of the cells. We
examine through simulation the performance of the system and evaluate the intercellular
transfer policy in terms of some selected criteria. The results indicate, under the assumed
conditions, that the developed policy improves the performance of the production cells.
