VI.4 - Manufacturing Cell Formation Problem: A Graph Partitioning Approach

Abstract

The design of a cellular manufacturing system requires that a machine population be partitioned into machine cells. A new graph partitioning heuristic is proposed to solve the manufacturing cell formation problem (MCFP). The proposed heuristic represents the MCFP as a graph whose node set represents the machine cluster and edge set represents the machine pair association weights. A graph partitioning approach is used in forming the manufacturing cells. This approach offers improved design flexibility by allowing a variety of design parameters to be controlled during cell formation. The effectiveness of the heuristic is demonstrated on several problems from the literature. In addition, this chapter proposes a cell formation problem solution approach. The proposed technique is unique in many aspects. First, the cell formation by graph partitioning (CFGP) method allows the user to design several alternative cellular configurations by setting the number of cells and the cell size desired. Secondly, The CFGP approach is capable of solving problems of realistic sizes while including consideration of important factors such as alternate machine types and usages.