The Application of Cellular Manufacturing in Hard Disk Drive Industry

Cellular Manufacturing System (CMS) is used widely in multiple-product industries because CMS is the management of cells for flexibility of production system. Processes or machines are arranged in similar groups, and products are categorized in appropriate production groups. This study used CMS to apply to the hard disk drives industry. The goal is to increase productivity but decrease work flow distance by utilizing the management algorithm of cells. The group of cells yielded from this algorithm will be used in CMS, and the measure of performance for the groups of cells management are grouping efficacy, inter-cell production flow, and work flow distance. The systems of before and after applying CMS are simulated in order to investigate the change in production. There are two significant results obtained from this study. Four out of six product types improved in production: 2.29%, 16.22%, 3.39%, and 4.16%. In addition, the work flow distance of six product types decreased: 46.80%, 41.41%, 45.95%, 7.63%, 2.66%, and 13.61%.