A similarity coefficient algorithm for the formation of reconfigurable manufacturing systems part family is presented, which considers bypassing moves and idle machines. The longest common subsequence (LCS) among different part processes is identified and the shortest composite supersequence (SCS) based on LCS is constructed. LCS and SCS are used to model the problem of bypassing moves and idle machines and LCS is highlighted. The proposed algorithm has a higher accuracy and practicability with high discrimination capability for similarity.