A methodology for part family formation in reconfigurable manufacturing systems using Shannon's entropy method

For effective utilization of resources, Operation Management plays an important role in businesses and organizations. It basically coordinates the efforts of people to fulfil the goals and objectives decided by the organization. Operation Management is a supporting system to carry out businesses. From the point of generation of raw material to the point of consumption of goods, it directs and controls the organization. It makes a path to a manufacturing system to fulfil its goal. For full utilization of resources in an uncertain environment, the manufacturing system faces various challenges in this century. The manufacturing systems must be responding rapidly to market changes. For effective management, a new paradigm in the manufacturing system is the Reconfigurable manufacturing systems, which are built around a part family to face such challenges in an uncertain environment. The authors have developed a methodology for part family formation using attributes modularity, reconfiguration effort, longest common subsequence, etc. in the present work. The developed methodology has been discussed using an example.