Solving an Integrated Cell Formation, Group Layout and Routing Problem Using Dynamic Programming Based Metaheuristic Algorithms

The cell formation problem and the group layout problem, both are two important problems in designing a cellular manufacturing system. The cell formation problem is consist of grouping parts into part families and machines into production cells. In addition, the group layout problem is to find the arrangement of machines within the cells as well as the layout of cells.
In this paper, an integrated approach is presented to solve the cell formation, group layout and routing problems. By Considering the dimension of machines, the width of the aisles, and the maximum permissible length of the plant site, a new framework, called spiral layout, is suggested for the layout of cellular manufacturing systems. To extend the applicability of the problem, parameters such as part demands, operation sequences, processing times and machine capacities are considered in the problem formulation. The problem is formulated as a bi-objective integer programming model, in which the first objective is to minimize the total material handling cost and the second one is to maximize the total similarity between machines. As the problem is NP-hard, three metaheuristic algorithms, based on Genetic Algorithm and Simulated Annealing are proposed to solve it. To enhance the performance of the algorithms, a Dynamic Programming algorithm is embedded within them. The performance of the algorithms is evaluated by solving numerical examples from the related literature. Finally, a comparison is carried out between the proposed spiral layout and the linear multi-row layout which has recently presented in the literature.