180 Int. J. Product Development, Vol. 10, Nos. 1/2/3, 2010 Copyright © 2010 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Ex-CLASS: Extended Cell formation and LAyout Selection considering production parameters with Sequence data A.R. Dixit* Department of Mechanical Engineering & Mining Machinery Engineering Indian School of Mines University, India E-mail: amitraidixit@gmail.com *Corresponding author P.K. Mishra Department of Mechanical Engineering MNNIT, India E-mail: pkm@mnnit.ac.in Abstract: The design of a Cellular Manufacturing System (CMS) often involves three major decisions: cell formation, facility layout within the cells and cell layout within the system. Ideally, these decisions should be addressed in order to obtain the complete result. A large number of papers on cell formation and layout design have been published so far, but very few of them have considered these objectives simultaneously. Consideration of important production parameters like operation sequence, production volume and batch size make the cell formation problem complex but more realistic. In this paper, a solution methodology has been developed that identifies part families/machine grouping and also provides amicable intercell/intracell facility layout design. The computational procedure of the algorithm has been illustrated by an example. Numerical results indicate that the proposed methodology is flexible and efficient. Further, it also points to the untapped potential of such an approach to solve CMS design and layout problems using sequence data. Keywords: cell formation; operation sequence; facility layout. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Dixit, A.R. and Mishra, P.K. (2010) ‘Ex-CLASS: Extended Cell formation and LAyout Selection considering production parameters with Sequence data’, Int. J. Product Development, Vol. 10, Nos. 1/2/3, pp.180–200. Biographical notes: Amit Rai Dixit is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mining Machinery Engineering at the Indian School of Mines University, India. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from MNNIT, Allahabad. He received his BTech in Mechanical Engineering from BIET and an MTech in Production Engineering from MNNIT. His research interests include group technology, advanced manufacturing technology, nontraditional manufacturing and supply chain management. He is a member of IE (India), ASME and IAENG.