Two methods to group parts into family:

1. Observation
2. Computerized method ( using PFA)

Production Flow Analysis (PFA) – used to solve family formation problem

for manufacturing cell design.

Note: There are many algorithms developed to solve the family

grouping problem.

- in a PFA, a large (incidence matrix) matrix is constructed where

rows represents OP codes and columns represents the
components.

- the objective of PFA is to bring together those components that

need the same or a similar set of OP codes in clusters.
1 if component j has OP code i.
The matrix is defined as Mij =
0 otherwise.

King’s algorithm – a rank order cluster algorithm to determine

component families and can be stated as follows:

Step 1: For calculate the total weight of column :

j wj

w j   2i M ij
i

Step 2. If is in ascending order, go to step 3. Otherwise,

wj

rearrange the column to make fall in an ascending order.

wj

Step 3. For i , calculate the total weight of row wi :

wi   2 j M ij
j

Step 4. If wi is in ascending order, stop. Otherwise, rearrange the

rows to make wi fall in an ascending order. Go to step 1.
Note: King’s algorithm can only handle problems with few machines and
components. The number of rows and columns are dependent on
computer hardware and software.
Step 2: Data base construction
Data base: a group of cross reference data files contatining all
necessary information for an application that can be accessed by
several programs.

3 Approach to construct a data base:

1. hierarchical
2. network
3. applications

Currently, there are many available commercial high level

programming language for data base construction and manipulation.
This includes: CODASYL, MARKIV, SPIRES and others.
Figure 4.9 to 4.12 shows a generic hierarchical approach to
construct a data base for the problem. The family matrix, standard plan
and operation plan are all indexed and accessed using the family number
and names which are dependent both on the hardware and software
ability. Forward and backward linking algorithms are usually
constructed.

Step 3-4: Search Procedure and editing

These are in the production stage in the process planning cycle.
Search algorithms are typically dependent on the data base structure. A
family matrix search can be seen as the matching of the family matrix
with a given code. The algorithm resembles a mask matching sequence.