In this paper, a stochastic cell formation problem is studied using queuing theory framework and considering reliability. Since cell formation problem is NP-Hard, two algorithms based on genetic and modified particle swarm optimization (MPSO) algorithms are developed to solve the problem. For generating initial solutions in these algorithms, a new heuristic method is developed, which always cre...

Purpose – In spite of having a number of general-purpose algorithms for solving plant layout problems, facility planners may still face a challenging task to adjust these algorithms to handle special, but not uncommon, layout problems. The purpose of this study is to propose a new method for addressing the impact of overhead space utilization on a plant layout solution. Design/methodology/appro...

Facility layout has considerable effects on the operational productivity and efficiency of a facility because of its direct effect on material handling costs. The objective of this study is to propose newweighted association rule-based data mining approaches for facility layout problem. Classic association rule-based approaches assume that each item has the same level of significance. On the ot...

New environmental characteristics and requirements have challenged manufacturing enterprises to improve the efficiency and productivity of their production activities. Cellular manufacturing (CM) as one of the solutions to this problem, as implementation of Group technology (GT), was proposed. Performance of cellular manufacturing systems depends heavily on the cell structure. In this paper we ...

Physically based simulation of cloth in virtual environments is a computationally demanding problem. It involves modeling the internal material properties of the textile (physical modeling) and also treating interactions with the surrounding scene (collision handling). In this paper, we present an approach to parallel cloth simulation designed for distributed memory parallel architectures, part...

This paper presents a novel, multi-objective mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) model for a cell formation problem (CFP) with alternative means. Due to existing contradiction among objectives, three are considered: 1) Minimizing the total cost consisting of; intercellular movements, purchasing, operation, and maintenance; 2) maximizing the utilization of machines in the system; 3) mini...

In this paper we are to present a practical application of Axiomatic Design (AD) methodology, as a roadmap to lean production, in redesigning a car body assembly line. Axiomatic Design theory provides a framework to simplify the whole problem. According to the AD principles, a hierarchical structure has been developed. The developed structure originated in lean manufacturing principles and exis...

In manufacturing systems, material transport plays a key role for production process efficiency. Because of their advantages over other material handling systems such as conveyors and robots, AGVs are widely used in flexible manufacturing systems. The scheduling of several AGVs in a non-conflicting manner is a complicated problem, especially when the AGV system is bi-directional. In fact, many ...

Mathematical programming and artificial intelligence (AI) methods are known as the most effective and applicable procedures to form manufacturing cells in designing a cellular manufacturing system (CMS). In this paper, a bi-objective programming model is presented to consider the cell formation problem that is solved by a proposed multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO). The model c...