Group Technology: Generation and Selection of the Best Multi-Criteria Alternative

Abstract

Group technology is a modern manufacturing approach which has been widely used in many industries. This paper addresses the machine-part cell formation problem while several criteria are considered for the evaluation of alternatives. The criteria include the number of work stations or cells, the cost of set-up and operation of different designs, and the volume of inter-flow traffic. Methods are presented for generation of efficient alternatives, evaluation of alternatives, and selection of the best alternative. This paper develops an approach to determine the machine-part cells and to choose the part processing plans minimizing the inter-cell part flow. The proposed approach solves the problem iteratively until a set of plans and the machine-part cells are obtained with minimal inter-cell part flow.