A dissimilarity measure for solving the cell formation problem in cellularmanufacturing

Cell formation (CF) is a vital aspect of the design of cellular manufacturi ng systems. Many similarity coefficient method (SCM)-based approaches have been proposed to solve the CF problem in the literature. However, some of t hese approaches have deficiencies and do not always produce proper machine groups and part families from the initial machine-part incidence matrix. Th is paper considers a new systematic approach that is based upon the calcula tion of an average voids value (AVV), which indicates the average number of newly produced voids when a pair of machine groups are combined. This appr oach is very simple, intuitively appealing, and overcomes many disadvantage s inherent in some traditional SCM-based approaches. The AVV approach is te sted against five well-known approaches in solving CF problems and the test results show that the approach is reliable and efficient. (C) 2001 Elsevie r Science Ltd. All rights reserved.