Summary
Far from being an outdated Manufacturing Systems Engineering methodology, Group Technology (GT) is becoming more relevant with the continuing reduction of product life cycles and the increasing variety of generically similar products being manufactured. However, combinatorial complexity, the explosion of information links as problem size increases, has historically limited the effectiveness of this manufacturing philosophy. The tight limits imposed on information incorporated into the systems design (by the factorial effects encountered at large data volumes) have always made GT implementations vulnerable to changes in their demand environment. This paper presents analysis which demonstrates how combinatorial complexity can be kept under control. This is achieved using established computer programming approaches which have only recently found application on a large scale in this area. In particular the utility for GT systems design of Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is discussed. The potential of such programming philosophies is demonstrated in the Cell Formation system AGATHA (Adaptive Group Analysis Through Heuristic Alterations), using production data from a local batch manufacturing company.
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© 1992 Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology
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Brandon, J.A., Schäfer, H. (1992). Strategies for Exploiting Emerging Programming Philosophies to Re-Invigorate Group Technology. In: Atkinson, J., Barrow, G., Burdekin, M., Chitkara, N.R., Hannam, R.G. (eds) Proceedings of the Twenty-Ninth International Matador Conference. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12433-6_25
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12433-6_25
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