A framework for understanding cellular manufacturing systems

Many, practical benefits, such as superior quality of products and short manufacturing lead times, are usually associated with Cellular Manufacturing. These and other benefits call lead to important competitive advantages for companies. However, to fully achieve these benefits there is a need for all evolution from the traditional concept of CM to the more comprehensive one, which we call Product Oriented Manufacturing. Here, systems are dynamically reconfigured for the total manufacturing of complete products, not parts only. In this paper, we make a contribution to better understanding the nature of cells and POM Systems. Thus, a classification framework is presented of the different types of cells that might be formed and considered as building blocks for POMS.