Virtual Cellular Multi-period Formation under the Dynamic Environment

Virtual cellular manufacturing is an innovative way of production organization which both in the production of flexibility and efficient to meet today's rapid development of science and technology and replacement of products. The key process of the design of virtual cellular manufacturing system—cell formation is the focus of research. In order to meet the characteristics of small batch and dynamically changing market demand, this paper studies the problems of virtual cellular multi-period dynamic reconfiguration. A reconfigurable system programming model is developed. The model incorporates parameters of the problems of product dynamic demand, machine capacity, operation sequence, balanced workload, alternative routings and batch setting. The objective of mixed integer programming model is to minimize the total costs of operation, moving raw materials, inventory holding and process routes setup. Though a case study, demonstrates the feasibility and validity of the model in reality.