Production Flow Analysis

Production Flow Analysis (PFA) was introduced by JL Burbidge [4] to solve the family formation problem for manufacturing cell design. In PFA, a large matrix (Incictence Matrix) is constructed. Each row of the matrix represents an operation code (OP Code) and each column in the matrix represents a component. An OP Code represents a series of operations that have to be performed on a component on one machine/work station. For example, the code OP can be used to represent the turning sequence : Face end and cut to size. Operations represented by OP Code are called the operation plan. An OP Code does not necessarily include all operations required on the machine for a component. It is used to represent a logical group of operations on a machine, so that a process plan can be represented in a concise manner. Such representation is called OP Code sequence.

In the incidence matrix, to be used for PFA, i designate on OP Codes, and j designates the component. M_ij = 1 (*) if component j has OP Code i or else, M_ij = 0. The objective of PFA is to bring together those components that need same or similar sect of OP Codes in clusters. Small problems of cluster formation can be solved by inspection whereas, in case of large problems, one can use algorithms available in large numbers. We discuss below, the Rank-order clustering algorithm for part family formation.