Title: Formation of manufacturing cells in group technology using a genetic algorithm approach

Authors: S. Sofianopoulou

Addresses: Department of Industrial Management and Technology, University of Piraeus, 80 Karaoli and Dimitriou str., Piraeus 18534, Greece

Abstract: To cope with a high level of product variety and a small manufacturing lot sizes, novel production techniques have immerged aiming at improving productivity and reducing manufacturing costs. Among them, group technology attempts to decentralise the process of production by identifying the elements of the manufacturing process and analysing their attributes. The purpose of this work is to describe a genetic algorithm approach specifically adapted to the cell formation problem, with the objective of minimising the interaction among cells, i.e. the inter-cellular traffic subject to cell size constraints. Machine sequences of operations have been taken into account. A brief overview of genetic algorithms is also presented in the article. Computational results for randomly produced representative problems are included.

Keywords: cellular manufacturing; genetic algorithms; group technology; manufacturing cells; cell formation; machine sequences; inter-cellular traffic; cell size constraints.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2010.030748

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2010 Vol.5 No.2, pp.212 - 225

Published online: 01 Jan 2010 *

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