click on star to go back to Joseph Sarkis' HomepageHybrid cellular manufacturing (CM) systems are well represented in manufacturing practice and thus constitute a fertile area of research. This work studies the performance of hybrid CM systems by means of data envelopment analysis (DEA). Since DEA allows for simultaneous analysis of multiple inputs and outputs of a system, it provides for a comprehensive investigation of CM performance under a wide variety of experimental conditions. For the purpose of measuring system efficiency, the number of machines and the degree of set up reduction are used as inputs, and flow time, work-in-progress (WIP) inventory and job tardiness are used as outputs. Results indicate that the hybrid systems in the study perform best at a low to intermediate degree of cellularization.
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