The development and evaluation of a capacity-constrained, multiobjective cell formation heuristic model

Abstract

Cellular Manufacturing (CM) is a manufacturing method that groups processes, people, and machines into workcells to produce a specific family of parts. This study concerns the very fundamental problem in designing CM systems-- the cell formation problem. The objective of this study is to provide researchers and managers with an improving means for forming cells in a CM environment. Two analytical approaches, a multiobjective heuristic and a linear programming based optimal algorithm, are proposed and compared in this study. A two-phase evaluation of both approaches is performed. In the first phase, a full factorial experimental design is conducted so that the effects of environmental factors on the performance of both approaches can be studied. Significant main effect of load level and interaction between matrix size and matrix density are identified. In the second phase, selected larger and more complex problems are studied and the features of the heuristic are described.