• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.83-89
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• 2016

The group formation problem of the machine and part is a critical issue in the planning stage of cellular manufacturing systems. The machine-part grouping with alternative process plans means to form machine-part groupings in which a part may be processed not only by a specific process but by many alternative processes. For this problem, this study presents an algorithm based on self organizing neural networks, so called SOM (Self Organizing feature Map). The SOM, a special type of neural networks is an intelligent tool for grouping machines and parts in group formation problem of the machine and part. SOM can learn from complex, multi-dimensional data and transform them into visually decipherable clusters. In the proposed algorithm, output layer in SOM network had been set as one-dimensional structure and the number of output node has been set sufficiently large in order to spread out the input vectors in the order of similarity. In the first stage of the proposed algorithm, SOM has been applied twice to form an initial machine-process group. In the second stage, grouping efficacy is considered to transform the initial machine-process group into a final machine-process group and a final machine-part group. The proposed algorithm was tested on well-known machine-part grouping problems with alternative process plans. The results of this computational study demonstrate the superiority of the proposed algorithm. The proposed algorithm can be easily applied to the group formation problem compared to other meta-heuristic based algorithms. In addition, it can be used to solve large-scale group formation problems.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.18 no.34
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• pp.123-128
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• 1995

The grouping of parts into families and machines into cells poses an important problem in the design and planning of the flexible manufacturing system(FMS). This paper proposes a new optimal algorithm of forming machine-part groups to maximize the similarity, based on branching from seed machine and bounding on a completed part. This algorithm is illustrated with numerical example. This algorithm could be applied to the generalized machine-part grouping problem.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.19 no.37
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• pp.1-7
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• 1996

The grouping of parts into families and machines into cells poses an important problem for the improvement of productivity and quality in the design and planning of the flexible manufacturing system(FMS). This paper proposes a new algorithm of forming machine-part groups in case of the bottleneck machine problem and shows the numerical example. This algorithm could be applied to the large scale machine-part grouping problem.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.213-221
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• 2003

In this paper, we consider a multi-objective part-machine grouping problem, in which part types have several alternative part routings and each part routing has a machining sequence. This problem is characterized as optimally determining part type sets and its corresponding machine cells such that the sum of inter-cell part movements and the sum of machine workload imbalances are simultaneously minimized. Due to the complexity of the problem, a two-stage heuristic algorithm is proposed, and experiments are shown to verify the effectiveness of the algorithm.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.91-111
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• 2007

In this paper an effective two-phase approach adopting modified p-median mathematical model is proposed for grouping machines and parts in cellular manufacturing(CM). Unlike the conventional methods allowing machines and parts to be improperly assigned to cells and families, the proposed approach seeks to find the proper block diagonal solution where all the machines and parts are properly assigned to their most associated cells and families in term of the actual machine processing and part moves. Phase 1 uses the modified p-median formulation adopting new inter-machine similarity coefficient based on the non-binary production data-based part-machine incidence matrix(PMIM) that reflects both the operation sequences and production volumes for the parts to find machine cells. Phase 2 apollos iterative reassignment procedure to minimize inter-cell part moves and maximize within-cell machine utilization by reassigning improperly assigned machines and parts to their most associated cells and families. Computational experience with the data sets available on literature shows the proposed approach yields good-quality proper block diagonal solution.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.41-54
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• 2005

In this paper, we consider a multi-objective machine cell formation problem. This problem Is characterized as determining part route families and machine cells such that total sum of inter-ceil part movements and maximum machine workload imbalance are simultaneously minimized. Together with the objective function, alternative part routes and the machine sequences of part routes are considered In grouping Part route families. Due to the complexity of the problem, a two-phase heuristic algorithm is proposed. And we developed an n-stage look-ahead heuristic algorithm that generalizes the roll-out algorithm. Computational experiments were conducted to verify the performance of the algorithm.

• Proceedings of the Korean Operations and Management Science Society Conference
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• 1996.04a
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• pp.125-130
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• 1996

This study is concerned with a heuristic algorithm that can make effectively the machine-part grouping in early stage for designing cellular manufacturing systems. By enhancing the Close Neighbour Algorithm(CNA), the proposed algorithm is concerned with making the machine-part grouping that can maximize machine utilization and minimize part's intercell movement by reducing exceptional elements. The algorithm is tested against existing algorithms in solving several machine-part initial matrices extracted from references and obtained by using random number. Test results shows that a solution matrix of the algorithm has superior grouping efficiency to Close Neighbour Algorithm.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.69-87
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• 2006

This paper proposes an effective approach for the part-machine grouping(PMG) based on the non-binary part-machine incidence matrix in which real manufacturing factors such as the operation sequences with multiple visits to the same machine and production volumes of parts are incorporated and each entry represents actual moves due to different operation sequences. The proposed approach adopts Fuzzy ART neural network to quickly create the Initial part families and their machine cells. A new performance measure to evaluate and compare the goodness of non-binary block diagonal solution is suggested. To enhance the poor solution due to category proliferation inherent to most artificial neural networks, a supplementary procedure reassigning parts and machines is added. To show effectiveness of the proposed approach to large-size PMG problems, a psuedo-replicated clustering procedure is designed. Experimental results with intermediate to large-size data sets show effectiveness of the proposed approach.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.23 no.61
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• pp.137-146
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• 2000

One of the problems faced in implementing cellular manufacturing systems is machine-part group formation. This paper proposes machine-part grouping algorithms based on Self-Organizing Map(SOM) neural networks and K-Means algorithm in cellular manufacturing systems. Although the SOM spreads out input vectors to output vectors in the order of similarity, it does not always find the optimal solution. We rearrange the input vectors using SOM and determine the number of groups. In order to find the number of groups and grouping efficacy, we iterate K-Means algorithm changing k until we cannot obtain better solution. The results of using the proposed approach are compared to the best solutions reported in literature. The computational results show that the proposed approach provides a powerful means of solving the machine-part grouping problem. The proposed algorithm Is applied by simple calculation, so it can be for designer to change production constraints.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.20-26
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• 2005

This paper proposes the heuristic algorithm for the generalized GT problems to consider the restrictions which are given the number of machine cell and maximum number of machines in machine cell as well as minimum number of machines in machine cell. This approach is split into two phase. In the first phase, we use the similarity coefficient which proposes and calculates the similarity values about each pair of all machines and sort these values descending order. If we have a machine pair which has the largest similarity coefficient and adheres strictly to the constraint about birds of a different feather (BODF) in a machine cell, then we assign the machine to the machine cell. In the second phase, we assign parts into machine cell with the smallest number of exceptional elements. The results give a machine-part grouping. The proposed algorithm is compared to the Modified p-median model for machine-part grouping.