Cellular Manufacturing System Design for Multi-Objective Criteria using Meta heuristic Approach

Abstract: The present work involves Design of a cellular manufacturing system for M/s Sagar Asia Private Limited, Hyderabad, using metaheuristic methods of Genetic Algorithm and Simulated Annealing Algorithm and subsequently to compare the performance evaluation of the said algorithms. M/s Sagar Asia is manufacturing a wide variety of access solutions including Ladders, Mobile Scaffolds, Work Platforms, and Access Solutions. A five-phased methodology was adopted for this study. First phase was the study of metaheuristic methods for cellular manufacturing system design. Manufacturing industries production process was studied in the next phase. Third phase involved collection of manufacturing data. In the fourth phase, a bi-objective mathematical model for cell formation was developed with an objective of designing a cellular manufacturing system by minimizing inter cell material handling cost and minimizing workers penalty cost due to workers varying skill level. A metaheuristic algorithm (Genetic Algorithm and Simulated Annealing Algorithm) has been developed to solve the industrial problem. Fourth phase covers the coding of both algorithms in MATLAB. For solving the developed bi-objective mathematical model different arrangement of machines were considered. Method-I (single type of machine for each cell formation) and method- II (copy of machines were considered for all the cells). Finally, fifth phase covers the performance comparison of both the methods.

Keywords: cellular manufacturing system; Genetic Algorithm (GA); Simulated Annealing Algorithm (SA); Worker Assignment.