Designing a new mathematical model for cellular manufacturing system based on cell utilization

In this paper, we propose a new mathematical model for cell formation in cellular manufacturing system (CMS) based on cell utilization concept. The objective of the model is to minimize the exceptional elements (EE) and number of voids in cells to achieve the higher performance of cell utilization. A number of test problems from the literature are carried out to verify the good ability of the proposed model to form part-machine grouping in comparison of the previous models ([S.J. Chen, C.S. Cheng, A neural network-based cell formation algorithm in cellular manufacturing, International Journal of Production Research 33 (2) (1995) 293-318], [I. Mahdavi, O.P. Kaushal, M. Chandra, Graph-neural network approach in cellular manufacturing on the basis of a binary system, International Journal of Production Research 39 (13) (2001) 2913-29221). (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.