| Article ID: | iaor201525262 |
| Volume: | 20 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Start Page Number: | 246 |
| End Page Number: | 269 |
| Publication Date: | Feb 2015 |
| Journal: | International Journal of Services and Operations Management |
| Authors: | Mahapatra S S, Tambuskar Dhanraj P, Narkhede B E |
| Keywords: | manufacturing industries, combinatorial optimization, programming: multiple criteria |
Virtual cellular manufacturing (VCM) has been evolved to improve the setup efficiency of cellular manufacturing systems without hampering the flexibility of job shop systems. In a VCM, resources are grouped logically at production planning and control stage to improve flow performance and production control even for unpredictable product mix. In this work, a novel algorithm is proposed using discrete particle swarm optimisation (DPSO) technique to design virtual cells considering processing time, operation sequence, routing flexibility, machine capacity, machine flexibility and demand. A numerical example from literature is used to illustrate the proposed algorithm. Benchmark problems of different size are tested for performance measures.