Minimizing total intercell and intracell moves in cellular manufacturing: a genetic algorithm approach

Cellular manufacturing lias been hailed as an effective way lo improve productivity in parts manufacturing organizations. The objective of cellular manufacturing is to group ptirts that have similar processing requirements into part families and machines into groups (cells) which meet the processing needs of part families assigned to them. A problem is formulated which minimizes the intercell and intracell part movements, and attention is focused on the minimum acceptable level of machine utilization while selecting an assignment of parts to a cell. Machine-cell-part-grouping problems are solved for two, three and four cells with an approach based on genetic algorithms. The results arc superior to the previous best in the published literature.