Operation sequence based similarity coefficient for RMS

Abstract

Reconfigurable manufacturing system is characterized by rapid and cost effective adaptation to the unscheduled and un-predictable changes in the market requirements through changeable functionality and scalable capacity around a part family. The design of RMS layout for catering to the product family requires an effective approach to group the parts based on operation sequence. In past the developed similarity coefficients suffer from the drawbacks. In the present work authors propose a BMIM (by passing moves and idle machines) similarity coefficient based on longest operation sequence. The superiority of the developed similarity coefficient is demonstrated through an illustration.