Machine cell formation in generalized group technology

In this paper, we study the configuration of machine cells in the presence of alternative routings for part types. The objective function is the minim ization of transportation costs. Limits on cell sizes as well as separation constraints (i.e. machines that are not allowed to be placed in the same c ell) and co-location constraints (i.e. machines that must be placed in the same cell) may be imposed. An efficient Tabu Search (TS) algorithm is propo sed to solve this problem. Extensive computational experiences with large-s ize problems show that this method outperforms some existing Simulated Anne aling (SA) approaches. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.