Solving the Cubic Cell Formation Problem Using Simulated Annealing Algorithm to Develop Multiple Configurations

The Cubic Cell Formation Problem (CCFP) in cellular manufacturing systems consists in decomposing a production system into a set of manufacturing cells, and assigning workers to cells besides parts and machines. The objective is to obtain manageable cells by minimising the inter-cell moves of parts and workers and the heterogeneity in cells. In this paper, we provide a solution methodology based on a modified simulated annealing heuristic with a proposed neighbourhood search procedure. The proposed methodology allows to build multiple configurations by giving to the designer the ability to control some parameters. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm gives a promising performance for the most problem instances found in the literature.