A Mathematical Model for Cell Formation in CMS Using Sequence Data

Cell formation problem in Cellular Manufacturing System (CMS) design has derived the attention of researchers for more than three decades. However, use of sequence data for cell formation has been the least investigated area. Sequence data provides valuable information about the flow patterns of various jobs in a manufacturing system. This paper presents a new mathematical model to solve a cell formation problem based on sequence data in CMS. The objective is to minimize the total costs of inter and intra-cell movements. This model depends on the attitude of the decision maker towards the minimum utilization level of each cell in such a way that the part-machine grouping can be changed significantly. A number of examples from the literature are solved by the LINGO software package to validate and verify the proposed model. Finally, computational results are reported and analyzed.