Part-machine cell formation in group technology using a simulated annealing-based meta-heuristic

Abstract

The part-machine cell formation problem (PMCFP) is a crucial step in the design of a cellular manufacturing system and has received considerable research attention over the last five decades. This study proposes a simulated annealing-based meta-heuristic for solving the PMCFP. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is compared to conventional algorithms across a set of PMCFPs available in the literature. Computational results using four types of performance measures show that the proposed simulated annealing-based meta-heuristic is highly effective by comparison with conventional algorithms for PMCFPs on the same test problems.

Keywords:

• cell formation problem
• manufacturing cell design
• simulated annealing
• meta-heuristic

Acknowledgement

This research was partially supported by the National Science Council of the Republic of China, Taiwan, under Contract No. NSC 97-2221-E-211-016/NSC 97-2410-H-211-001-MY2.