Concurrent cell formation and layout design using a genetic algorithm under dynamic conditions

Abstract

The fundamental function of a Cellular Manufacturing System (CMS) is based on the definition and recognition of a type of similarity among the parts that must be produced in a planning period. Cell Formation (CF) and cell machine layout design are two important steps in the implementation of the CMS. This paper represents a new mathematical nonlinear programming model for dynamic cell formation that employs the rectilinear distance notion to determine the layout in the continuous space. In the presented model, the objective function accurately calculates the costs of inter and intra-cell movements of parts and calculates the cost of a cell restructure. Due to the problem complexity, the presented mathematical model is categorized in NP-hardness; thus, a Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used for solving this problem. Comparing the results from the GA and the results from solving a linear model through Lingo specifies that solving the presented model accurately for more than four machines in a logical time is impossible.