Machine-component grouping using genetic algorithms

One major problem in cellular manufacturing is the grouping of component pa rts with similar processing requirements into part families. and machines i nto manufacturing cells to facilitate the manufacturing of specific part fa milies assigned to them. The objective is to minimize the total inter-cell and intra-cell movements of parts during the manufacturing process. In this paper, a mathematical model is presented to describe the characteristics o f such a problem. An approach based on the concept of genetic algorithms is developed to determine the optimal machine-component groupings. Illustrati ve examples are used to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach . Indeed, the results obtained show that the proposed genetic approach is a simple and efficient means for solving the machine-component grouping prob lem. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.