Heuristic Approaches for Cell Formation in Cellular Manufacturing

Shahram Saeedi, Maghsud Solimanpur, Iraj Mahdavi, Nikbakhsh Javadian

.

DOI: 10.4236/jsea.2010.37077                

Abstract

Cellular Manufacturing System (CMS) is an application of Group Technology (GT) that allows decomposing a manu-facturing system into subsystems. Grouping the machines and parts in a cellular manufacturing system, based on simi-larities is known as cell formation problem (CFP) which is an NP-hard problem. In this paper, a mathematical model is proposed for CFP and is solved using the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Simulated Annealing (SA) meta-heuristic methods and the results are compared. The computational results show that the GA method is more effective in solving the model.

Keywords

Cell Formation Problem, Ant Colony Optimization, Genetic Algorithm, Simulated Annealing, Sequence Data, Production Volume

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	C. Zhao and Z. Wu, “A Genetic Algorithm for Cell Formation with Multiple Routes and Multiple Objectives,” International Journal Production Research, Vol. 38, No. 2, 2000, pp. 385-395.
[2]	C. C. Gallagher and W. A. Knight, “Group Technology Production Methods in Manufacturing,” Knight/Ellis Horwood Limited, 1986.
[3]	J. S. Morris and R. J. Tersine, “A Simulation Analysis of Factors Influencing the Attractiveness of Group Technology and Cellular Layouts,” Management Science, Vol. 36, No. 12, 1990, pp. 1567-1578.
[4]	J. L. Burbidge, “Group-Technology in Engineering Industry,” Mechanical Engineering Publication Ltd., UK, 1979.
[5]	A. Ballakur and H. J. Steudel, “A within Cell Utilization Based Heuristic for Designing Cellular Manufacturing Systems,” International Journal of Production Research, Vol. 25, No. 5, 1987, pp. 639-655.
[6]	J. A. Joines, R. E. King and C. T. Culbreth, “A Comprehensive Review of Production-Oriented Manufacturing Cell Formation Technique,” International Journal of Flexible Automation and Integrated Manufacturing, Vol. 3, No. 3-4, 1996, pp. 225-265.
[7]	A. Islier, “Group Technology by Ant System Algorithm,” International Journal of Production Research, Vol. 43, No. 5, 2005, pp. 913-932.
[8]	G. Prabhaharan, A. Murugunandam and P. Asokan, “Machine Cell Formation for Cellular Manufacturing Systems Using an Ant Colony System Approach,” International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Vol. 25, 2005, pp. 1013-1019.
[9]	K. L. Mak, P. Peng, X. X. Wang and T. L. Lau, “ An Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm for Scheduling Virtual Manufacturing Systems,” International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, Vol. 20, No. 6, 2007, pp. 524-537.
[10]	K. Spiliopoulos and S. Sofianpoulou, “An Efficient Ant Colony Optimization System for the Manufacturing Cells Formation Problem,” International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Vol. 36, No. 5-6, 2008, pp. 589-597.
[11]	S. E. Kesen, M. D. Toksari, Z. Gungor and E. Guner, “Analyzing the Behaviors of Virtual Cells (Vcs) and Traditional Manufacturing Systems: Ant Colony Optimization (ACO)-Based Metamodels,” Computers and Operations Research, Vol. 36, No. 7, 2009, pp. 2275-2285.
[12]	S. I. Satoglu and N. C. Surech, “A Goal Programming Approach for Design of Hybrid Cellular Manufacturing System in Dual Resource Constrained Environments,” Computers and Industrial Engineering, Vol. 56, No. 2, 2009, pp. 560-575.
[13]	Y. Kao and S. C. Fu, “An Ant-Based Clustering Algorithm for Manufacturing Cell Design,” International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Vol. 28, 2006, pp. 1182-1189.
[14]	R. S. Pandian and S. S. Mahapatra, “Manufacturing Cell Formation with Production Data Using Neural Networks,” Computers and Industrial Engineering, Vol. 56, No. 4, May 2009, pp. 1340-1347.
[15]	I. Mahdavi, M. M. Paydar, M. Solimanpur and A. Heidarzadeh, “Genetic Algorithm Approach for Solving a Cell Formation Problem in Cellular Manufacturing,” Expert Systems with Applications, Vol. 36, No. 3, 2009, pp. 6598-6604.
[16]	I. Mahdavi, B. Shirazi and M. M. Paydar, “A Flow Matrix-Based Heuristic Algorithm for Cell Formation and Layout Design in Cellular Manufacturing System,” International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Vol. 39, No. 9-10, 2008, pp. 943-953.
[17]	J. Arkat, M. Saidi and B. Abbasi, “Applying Simulated Annealing to Cellular Manufacturing System Design,” International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Vol. 32, No. 5-6, 2007, pp. 531-536.
[18]	A. Ahi, M. B. Aryanezhad, B. Ashtiani and A. Makui, “A Novel Approach to Determine Cell Formation, Intercellular Machine Layout and Cell Layout in the CMS Problem Based on TOPSIS Method,” Computers and Operations Research, Vol. 36, 2009, pp. 1478-1496.
[19]	X. Wang, J. Tang and K. Yung, “Optimization of the Multi Objective Dynamic Cell Formation Problem Using a Scatter Search Approach,” International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Vol. 44, No. 3-4, 2009, pp. 318-329.
[20]	A. Muruganandam, G. Prabhaharan, P. Asokan and V. Baskaran, “A Memetic Algorithm Approach to the Cell Formation Problem,” International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Vol. 25, No. 9-10, 2005, pp. 988-997.
[21]	M. Dorigo and G. D. Caro, “The Ant Colony Optimization Meta-Heuristic,” McGraw-Hill, New York, 1999.
[22]	W. J. Boe and C. Cheng, “A Close Neighbour Algorithm for Designing Cellular Manufacturing Systems,” International Journal of Production Research, Vol. 29, No. 10, 1991, pp. 2097-2116.