THE MINIMUM-COST, MACHINE-PART CELL-FORMATION PROBLEM

This paper argues that it is essential to consider explicitly the main elements of manufacturing costs in designing cellular manufacturing s ystems. Consequently, a mixed linear program is introduced to help sol ve the cell formation problem where the objective is to minimise the s um of these cost elements. A method to determine its optimal solution is proposed as well as an adaptation of the simulated annealing algori thm designed to achieve good approximate solutions. Finally, a quick a ssessment of the performance of this simulated annealing adaptation is provided.