Part Family and Operations Group Formation for RMS Using Bond Energy Algorithm Kamal Khanna #1 , Rakesh Kumar *2 #1 PhD Research Scholar, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, IKG PTU, Kapurthala, India kksbs1@gmail.com *2 Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Shaheed Bhagat Singh State Technical Campus, Ferozepur, India rakesh1607@gmail.com Abstract— In the present global scenario companies are forced to compete in product varieties and speed to market as well as in price. Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMSs) have been envisaged as a manufacturing paradigms to face these challenges. The foundation of RMS lies on the premise of group technology. The present work highlights the peculiarities of RMS vis a vis CMS, another group technology based manufacturing paradigm. It attempts to evolve a methodology for RMS cell formation; composition of part families and subsequently recognition of operation groups. Bond Energy Algorithm has been incorporated in the present work and considered as the foundation technique to structure the part family formation in RMS. The effectiveness of the methodology has been compared with some standard problems from the CMS cell formation literature and provides an outline for the RMS design which provides assuring manufacturing paradigm for future. Keywords: Bond Energy Algorithm, Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems, Seed Sub-Matrix I. INTRODUCTION Manufacturing companies in today’s scenario are facing increasingly frequent and unpredictable market changes driven by global competition, including the rapid introduction of new products, reducing lead times, increasing quality and product variety [19],[26]. To remain competitive in such a scenario, companies must design manufacturing systems that not only produce high-quality products at low cost, but also allow for rapid response to market changes and consumer needs. Dedicated Manufacturing systems (DMSs) are capable of mass production but are incompetent to provide variety. Flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs) do respond to product changes; but they are not designed for structural changes [11] and therefore cannot respond to abrupt market fluctuations. It has been envisaged that the challenges posed by present-day global market environment could be faced if we have a responsive manufacturing system that can be created by incorporating basic process modules, both hardware and software, that can be rearranged quickly and reliability, allows adding, removing or modifying specific process capabilities, controls, software or machine structure to adjust production capacity in response to changing markets demands or technologies and provides customized flexibility for a particular part family and should be open ended, so that it can be improved, upgraded, and reconfigured, rather than replaced to accommodate demands or technologies [12],[15],[19],[27]. Keeping in view these factors, a new manufacturing system to fulfil these objectives was proposed in 1999, in the Engineering Research Centre (ERC) at the University of Michigan College Of Engineering. It was named as “Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (RMSs)” and described as, “A system designed at the outset for rapid change in its structure, as well as in its hardware and software components, in order to quickly adjust its production capacity and functionality within a part family in response to sudden market changes or intrinsic system change [27]. RMS has been envisaged to provide the exact functionality and capacity that is needed, exactly when it is needed. Thus it can be made to be a dedicated system or a flexible system or in between and can change as and when required [19]. A. RMS Cell Formation Cell formation is a core issue in the implementation of all ‘Group Technology’ based Manufacturing systems’ such as CMS, FMS, RMS etc. Cell formation includes two sub-problems: the identification of ‘part families’ and formation of ‘machine groups’ of ‘production cells’. Part family formation provides a number of benefits in terms of manufacturing, design, purchasing etc. All parts in a family, depending on the purpose, may require similar treatment, handling and design features, enabling reducing setup times, improved scheduling, improved process control and standardized process plans. Part family formation, is therefore, a prerequisite for the efficient manufacture of parts in groups and is probably the main determinant for the overall effectiveness of the cell system of production [23]. In the Cellular Manufacturing systems, the machine groups are firstly ISSN (Print) : 2319-8613 ISSN (Online) : 0975-4024 Kamal Khanna et al. / International Journal of Engineering and Technology (IJET) DOI: 10.21817/ijet/2017/v9i2/170902273 Vol 9 No 2 Apr-May 2017 1365