An efficient tabu search algorithm to the cell formation problem with alternative routings and machine reliability considerations

  • Authors:

  • Shu-Hsing Chung;Tai-Hsi Wu;Chin-Chih Chang

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, National Chiao Tung University, 1001, Ta Hsueh Road, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan;Department of Business Administration, National Taipei University, 151, University Road, San Shia, Taipei 237, Taiwan;Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, National Chiao Tung University, 1001, Ta Hsueh Road, Hsinchu 300, Taiwan

  • Venue:
  • Computers and Industrial Engineering
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

Cell formation is the first step in the design of cellular manufacturing systems. In this study, an efficient tabu search algorithm based on a similarity coefficient is proposed to solve the cell formation problem with alternative process routings and machine reliability considerations. In the proposed algorithm, good initial solutions are first generated and later on improved by a tabu search algorithm combining the mutation operator and an effective neighborhood solution searching mechanism. Computational experiences from test problems show that the proposed approach is extremely effective and efficient. When compared with the mathematical programming approach which took three hours to solve problems, the proposed algorithm is able to produce optimal solutions in less than 2s.