International Journal of Production Research · 1985 · 36 citations · 6 references
EngineeringIndustrial EngineeringManufacturing EngineeringManufacturing SystemsProduction PlanningProduction SystemsAssembly SystemsCellular ManufacturingCombinatorial OptimizationFlexible Manufacturing SystemsForming ProcessesProduction SchedulingFlexible ManufacturingFlexible Manufacturing System DesignFlexible Production SystemsHeuristic AlgorithmsHeuristic Cell FormationMachine Cell FormationManufacturing Cell FormationSolution Space Exploration
This paper provides an heuristic for the planning and study of machine-component groups in flexible production cells and flexible manufacturing systems. The problem of group formation defined on master-component process routes is undertaken in terms of minimum differences between masters and maximum combinations of masters. Group formation is a ‘hard’ combinatorial problem subject to exponential growth of complexity as the number of decision-making variables increases. The heuristic is designed to search the solution space of the problem in monotone-increasing order of solution costs so as to avoid the enumeration of solutions for cost minimization.
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