Cooperative cellular manufacturing system: A cooperative game theory approach

Abstract

In the cellular industry, the components of products are manufactured by multiple companies that are distributed across different regions, hence increasing production costs. In this regard, the present study aims to introduce a cooperative cellular manufacturing system to decrease these costs. To this end, a mathematical programming model was proposed to estimate the production cost in the case of companies working independently, and the model was then extended to consider coalitional conditions in which the companies cooperated as an integrated cell formation system. A key question that arises in this scenario is how to arrange the cells and machines of multiple companies when their cell formation systems are designed cooperatively. Through a realistic case study of three high-tech suppliers of Mega Motor Company, we demonstrated that these companies could reduce the costs using a cooperative cellular manufacturing system. Then, the cost savings of each coalition of companies obtained from cooperation was computed to get a fair allocation of the cost savings among the cooperating firms. Four cooperative game theory methods including Shapley value, τ -value, core-center, and least core were then proposed to examine fair sharing of cost saving. A comprehensive analysis of the case study revealed significant managerial insights.