Title: Application of single depot multiple travelling salesman method to cell formation problems

Authors: Mohammad Mahdi Paydar, Iraj Mahdavi, Kathryn A. Szabat

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering, Mazandaran University of Science and Technology, Babol, Iran. ' Department of Industrial Engineering, Mazandaran University of Science and Technology, Babol, Iran. ' Management Department, La Salle University, Philadelphia, PA 19141, USA

Abstract: The cell formation problem (CFP) determines the decomposition of the manufacturing cells of a production system in which machines are assigned to these cells to process one or more part families. In this paper, the CFP is formulated as a single depot multiple travelling salesman problem (SDmTSP). Computational results comparing the model with a set of group technology (GT) problems available in the literature are presented. The approach produced solutions with better grouping efficacy than is reported in the literature.

Keywords: cell formation; single depot multiple TSP; travelling salesman problem; SDmTSP; grouping efficacy; cellular manufacturing; group technology; manufacturing cells.

DOI: 10.1504/IJADS.2010.036853

International Journal of Applied Decision Sciences, 2010 Vol.3 No.4, pp.390 - 399

Published online: 12 Nov 2010 *

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