Integrative Formation and Layout Design in Cellular Manufacturing Systems

This paper considers an integrative view of manufacturing cell formation and both inter-cell and intra-cell layout problems, in which, cells formation and their popular bidirectional linear layout is simultaneously determined through a dynamic programming algorithm (which uses the idea of an undirected graph representation of material flow between machines) with the objective of minimizing the inter-cell flow cost under cell size constraint. This dynamic programming algorithm is implemented in a simulated annealing approach with genetic operators to reach a near optimal solution. Then, using an ant colony approach, we have dealt with intra-cell layout problem, i.e., to layout machines within relative cells. In contrast with most of available approaches in literature, we have considered: 1-The objective function of minimizing overall inter-cell flow cost instead of minimizing the number of inter-cell movements, which is more precise and applicable. 2-The integrative and simultaneous obtaining of cell formation and their layout instead of a prior cell forming in sequential approaches, which is important regarding the objective function. 3-All three phase of cell formation, inter-cell and intracell layout design problems, which are all important for overall performance of system. and 4-An easy to code and solve procedure for addressed problems by metaheuristic approaches.

Keywords:

Cellular Manufacturing , Cell Formation , Intra-cell Layout , Inter-cell Layout , Simulated Annealing , Dynamic Programming , Graph Theory , Genetic Operators , Ant Colony Optimization