A multi-criteria tabu search approach to cell formation problems in group technology with multiple objectives

Group technology techniques are not widely used in many manufacturing systems. Several algorithms have been proposed for the optimal design of efficient manufacturing cells. The cell formation problem must take into account several objectives: the number of bottleneck operations, the number of bottleneck machines and/or parts, the intercell flow, the intracell workload balancing, the subcontracting costs, the machine duplication costs, and the workload of the busiest machine or cell, among others. In this paper, the authors propose a multi-criteria methodology for solving the cell formation problem with multiple objectives. This approach is based on the use of the tabu search heuristic for solving a sequence of single-objective, multiconstrained subproblems, in which each objective is taken and optimized in turn, following their order of relative importance. The subproblems are tackled by a strategic oscillation strategy. Computational results concerning an application to a bi-criteria problem are reported for instances with up to 100 machines and 1,000 parts.