Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142

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Journal of Manufacturing Systems

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmansys

An adjustable grouping genetic algorithm for the design of cellular

manufacturing system integrating structural and operational
parameters
N. Jawahar a, , R. Subhaa b
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai, 625 015, India
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai, 625 015, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper presents non-linear and linear formulations for the design of a Cellular Manufacturing Sys-
Received 8 June 2016 tems (CMS) modeled integrating structural and operational decision parameters, and a Genetic Algorithm
Received in revised form 28 January 2017 (GA) based on self-regulating adaptive operators. The proposed CMS model evolves the structural design
Accepted 17 April 2017
decisions of number of cells, and parts machines assignment to cells, along with operational decisions
of scheduling under machine duplications and alternate routings/cross-ow environments. The distinc-
Keywords:
tive features of the CMS model under consideration are: i) integration of cost elements addressing both
Cellular manufacturing system
structural and operational issues in the design of CMS; ii) capable of evolving better CMS design deci-
Genetic algorithm
Cell formation
sions in terms of operational cost when compared to the literature part-machine grouping decisions;
Grouping genetic algorithm iii) suitable for variety of manufacturing system designs by relaxing the model constraints. Besides, this
Adaptive parameters paper proposes a new variant of Grouping Genetic Algorithm namely Adjustable Grouping Genetic Algo-
rithm (AGGA) that has features to adjust the coding suitable for machine duplication environment of
the proposed CMS model and regulate genetic parameters towards convergence. It is shown, through
comparisons with Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithm, Simple Genetic Algorithm (SGA) and also opti-
mal solutions obtained via mathematical model relaxed to xed number of cells, that AGGA is capable of
evolving optimal or near optimal solutions in a computationally efcient manner.
2017 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction design and its performance are studied by various researchers in

The cellular manufacturing system (CMS) is a manufacturing
approach based on Group Technology (GT) that exploits the advan-
tages of similarities in the processing and design characteristics
of the parts. The CMS implementations bring forth the advantages
of reduced material handling effort, reduced work-in-process, less
congestion, set-up-time reduction and simplied production con-
trol, and the cells formed would have the production efciency
of the product layouts and the control advantages of the process
layouts [1]. The design of CMS involves various structural and oper-
ational decisions [2]. The major structural decisions are: Number of
cells; Grouping of parts and machines into cells; Layout; and that
of operational are: Scheduling; Machine duplications and Alter-
nate routings. The impact of these decision parameters on the CMS
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: jawahartce@yahoo.co.uk, jawahartce@tce.edu (N. Jawahar),
rsubhaa@yahoo.com (R. Subhaa).
different focus with different objectives. Further, the manufactur-
ing rms are facing variations in product demand and mix due to
shorter product life cycles [3]. To remain competitive, the rms
have to be designed considering dynamic demands and unstable
or stochastic production environment [4]. On these considerations,
the paper analyses the various study on CMS design based on the
decision parameters and stochastic considerations. Table 1 shows
the decision parameters considered in the literature of CMS design.
It can be summarized as:
Not all decision parameters have been considered together.
The principal decision parameter of CMS design is the grouping
of parts and machines for each cell, which in general, referred as
cell formation (CF) problem.
The other parameters have been considered with the part-
machine grouping decisions in different manners and are as
follows:
 Machine duplications to avoid or reduce exceptional elements
and inter-cell moves [57];

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmsy.2017.04.017
0278-6125/ 2017 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 116
Table 1
Decision parameters of CMS design.

Sl. no Author(s) CMS design decision parameters Stochastic parameters Solution Method

No. of cells Part/Machine Scheduling Layout Machine Duplication Alternate route

Assignments

1 De Lit et al. [16] GGA

N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142

2 Adil and Rajamani [17] SA

3 Brown and Sumichrast [18] GGA

4 Hu and Yasuda [19] GGA

5 Wu et al. [8] GA

6 James et al. [20] GGA

7 Keeling et al. [21] GGA

8 Wu et al. [22] SA

9 Wu et al. [23] SA-GA

10 Paydar et al. [9] SA

11 Elmi et al. [13] SA

12 Rezaeian et al. [12] ANN

13 Chung et al. [24] TS

14 Bortolini et al. [5] heuristic

15 Arkat et al. [25] GA

16 Mahdavi et al. [26] LINGO

17 Tavakkoli-Moghaddam et al. [27] SS

18 Egilmez et al. [28] ARENA

19 Chang et al. [10] TS

20 Solimanpur and Elmi [14] TS

21 Nouri & Hong [29] BFA

22 Alhourani [6] heuristic

23 Brown [7] heuristic

24 Chattopadhyay et al. [30] ANN

25 Renna and Ambrico [31] LINGO

26 Li et al. [15] ACO

27 Deep and Singh [32] GA

28 Erozan et al. [33] GA

29 Sakhaii et al. [11] CPLEX

30 Egilmez and Suer [34] LINGO

31 Zohrevand et al. [35] TS-GA

32 Niakan et al. [4] NSGA II-MOSA,

33 Nouri et al. [3] BFA

indicates the decision parameter is considered as decision variable.
 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142
Fig. 1. (a) GaGA chromosome with 3 cells (b) GGA chromosome with 2 cells.
 Scheduling to minimize makespan time [8];
 Layout considerations [911] to minimize material handling
effort within and/or between the cells and
 Number of cells [12] to enhance grouping efcacy.
Scheduling has been considered as a subsequent decision after CF
decisions of part and machine assignment [1315]. The integra-
tion of operational issue of scheduling with other CMS structural
parameters is limited in literature. Wu et al. [8] has used mini-
mum makespan as the objective function to form cells, and stated
that the integration use of production factors like processing
sequence, processing time, and production volume in cell for-
mation would lead to better results.
The alternate route choices that occur on machine duplications
and cross-ow (i.e. scheduling operations of parts to machines in
another cell as the machine in parent cell being busy) can affect
scheduling decisions. This is not given due considerations.
The above points reveal that consideration of structural issues of
optimal number of cells, and part-machine grouping with machine
duplications along with operational issue of scheduling under
machine duplications and alternate routings or cross-ow is lim-
ited in CMS design literature. However, it is evident from the
literature that every structural and operational decision parameter
contributes somehow for improving the production efciency and
the integration of all them in CMS design would enhance the appli-
cation potential in the discrete part manufacturing sector (such
as automobile, machine tool manufacturers etc.). On these con-
siderations, this paper formulates a CMS model to take decisions
on the following structural and operational decision parameters in
an integrated manner: Optimal number of cells and part-machine
assignments along with machine duplications; Optimal schedule
under alternate routings facilitated by machine duplications and
cross-ow.
The complexities associated with the non-linearities, NP-
hardness and large search space of the model demand the usage
of an intelligent search heuristic which works with simultaneous
set of solutions in parallel to avoid search ending in poor quality
solutions and directs the search to global or near optimal solution.
Many intelligent search meta-heuristics like Simulated Annealing
(SA), Tabu Search (TS), Genetic algorithm (GA), Bacteria Foraging
Algorithm (BFA) have been proposed for many CMS design prob-
lems. However, GA nds a special place in CMS studies [36] on the
following reasons (i) population of solutions that can explore and
exploit entire search space (ii) the selection operator that works on
the basis of survival of the ttest and thus preserve the goodness
of the solution (iii) the mutation operator that exploit search space
and avoid being stuck in local optima (iv) able to handle multi-
modal search space. The GA is also proved to be robust in complex
search spaces [37]. Especially, the CMS models that have considered
number of cells (C) as a design parameter, have proposed mostly GA
approaches. These approaches fall under two groups as: i) sequen-
tial approach that use coding scheme without considering C and
it is optimized by iterative process and ii) simultaneous approach
with C in the coding scheme. The papers by [10,2224,38] have used
sequential approach (i.e. iterative process) for nding optimal num-
ber of cells Copt by repeating the entire meta-heuristic procedure
till an improvement is observed. Wu et al. [22] has mentioned that
117
the iterative process of optimizing cell number as a weakness of
this methodology. Further, the iterative process is computationally
inefcient when the problem size i.e. number of machine increases.
On the other hand, the simultaneous approach in literature, pro-
poses widely a specic meta-heuristic method namely Grouping
Genetic Algorithm (GGA), a variant of GA that is being modied for
grouping requirements of problems like reviewer group construc-
tion problem [39], clustering problem [40] and CF problems [41].
The CF models by [16,18,19,42,43] have used GGA to evolve the Copt .
The GGAs proposed for CF problems, in general, use a special coding
scheme with three sections one each for machine, part and cell [42].
The brief description of GGA coding is: The cell section of the chro-
mosome represents the list of groups with its genes represented
by cell identiers and the length of this section varies depending
upon the number of groups generated; The alleles for the genes of
the machine assignment section is one of the cell identiers in the
list of cells of the cell section and the number of genes for machine
section is equal to number of machines, and thus section length is
constant; Similarly, the alleles for the genes of the part assignment
section is also one of the cell identiers and the number of genes
for part section is equal to number of parts, and its length is also a
constant. Fig. 1a and b shows GGA chromosomes with the number
of cells as 3 and 2 respectively of a CF problem with 6 machines and
8 parts.
The above coding scheme of GGA allocates machines in any one
of the cells and has no provision to incorporate machine dupli-
cations in the cells. This limits its usage in machine duplication
considerations like the problem under consideration and there is a
need for a new coding scheme, adjustable to incorporate machine
duplications.
Besides, the important requirements of GA are to converge to
global or near optimal solution and to explore new regions of
the search space in the hunt for high quality solutions [44]. This
requires a balance between the exploration and exploitation for
searching adaptively a huge unknown search space for the global
solutions [45]. This balance is dictated by the crossover probability
(Pc ) and mutation probability (Pm ). However, increased values Pc
and Pm lead to exploration at the expense of exploitation [44]. In
order to overcome this deciency, the works of Chan et al. [46]
and Mak et al. [47] used a GA variant named as Adaptive GA
(AGA) that uses adaptive Pc and Pm to achieve trade-off between
the exploration and exploitation and proved that AGA improves
search ability without increase in computational time.
Taking into the considerations of i) the inability of GGA in
addressing machine duplication cases (ii) The features of GA that
has the robustness of direct manipulation and parameter coding,
working with population of solutions, sampling and blind research
and stochastic operators [37] and iii) the searching capability of
adaptive parameters in converging quickly [46,47], this paper pro-
poses a new variant of GGA, for grouping of machines and parts with
optimal number of cells for CMS that has the feature to adjust the
coding suitable for machine duplication design/environment and
regulating genetic parameters towards convergence and is named
as Adjustable Grouping Genetic Algorithm (AGGA) for the CMS
model under consideration. The proposed AGGA uses a high value
of Pc and Pm in initial generations leading to higher exploration
and exploitation that may result in more accurate solution. And in
118 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142

the successive generations, the genetic parameters are reduced by on number of cells, part-family formation, machines assignment
Generation Gap (GG) that allows overlapping population and by a and scheduling under machine duplications and cross ow deter-
factor named Generation Gap Factor (GGF) which works in similar mine the above costs. These decisions are optimized so that total
to quenching rate of SA. Another factor, namely Adaptive Factor cost of operation (TC) is minimized. On the above described CMS
(AF), is used to decide the number of generations in which genetic design scenario, the mathematical model is formulated and delin-
parameter updating occurs. eated in Section 2.2.
The rest of the paper is organised with Section 2 describing
the integrated CMS model environment, mathematical formulation 2.2. Mathematical formulation
and model complexity. Section 3 presents the AGGA procedure and
its implementation. Section 4 deals with a numerical illustration The mathematical formulation of the proposed problem envi-
with parameter tuning. Section 5 discusses CMS model validity and ronment is detailed in this section.
Section 6 analyses the performance of AGGA. Section 7 discusses the
features of AGGA and Section 8 concludes the paper. 2.2.1. Notation
The notations used in the mathematical formulation are as fol-
lows
2. Model formulation
Indices
c,c index for cell (c,c = 1,2,. . .. . .C)
The CMS design of integrated CF decisions, number of cells, i,p index for parts (i=1,2,. . .. . .n)
scheduling under machine duplications and alternate routes/cross- j index for machines (j = 1,2,. . .. . .m)
ow is described and mathematical formulation is elaborated in k,q index for part processing sequence(k, q =1,2,. . .. . .. . .Ki )
this section. Design parameters
CFc c cross-ow movement cost per unit part from cell c to cell c
di demand for part i per period
2.1. CMS design environment ICc c inter-cell movement cost per unit part from cell c to cell c
jik machine j required for the operation k of part i
This section presents the situations under which the design Ki number of operations of part i
of CMS is considered. The part family data of demand, process- N number of parts
M number of machines
ing requirements (processing time, due time and sequence, and
MUj utility rate of machine-type j per unit time
machine) are known priori. The machine duplication is admitted to Oik kth operation of part i
avoid exceptional elements as well as to take advantage of schedul- tik processing time for operation k of part i
ing by the way of cross-ow. The minimum operational cost is the Design variables
design goal. The operational cost comprises of inter-cell and cross- Aj.c variable used for linearizing Cmax XXj.c
ow movement costs, and machine usage or utility costs which are Bik.cc, binary integer variable used for linearizing Xjik .c Yik.c Zi.c
described below. Dik.cc, binary integer variable used for linearizing Yik.c Zi.c
C Integer variable that indicates number of cells
When the machines required for the completion of certain oper-
CiKi completion time of the last (Ki th ) operation of part i
ations of the parts (exceptional elements) are not assigned to the Cik completion time of the operation k of part i
parent cell (i.e. cell to which the part is assigned), then the parts Cmax variable that indicates the completion time of last operation of
have to move to other cell where the machine is available. This all jobs (i.e. makespan time)
movement of parts is called as inter-cell movement and its cor- Eik.c variable used for linearizing Yikc Cik
Fpq.c variable used for linearizing Ypqc Cpq
responding material handling cost is accounted as Inter-Cell Cost Gikpq.c variable used for linearizing Eikc ikpqc
(ICC). The inter-cell movement minimizes the machine duplica- Hikpq.c variable used for linearizing Fpqc ikpqc
tions and thereby the capital investment is reduced. On the other Sik start time of operation k of part i
hand, the parts need to move to another cells and causes increased Xj.c , Xjik .c binary integer variable that indicates the assignment of
machine j/machine jik to cell c
material handling effort and cost, complicated production planning
Yik.c binary integer variable that indicates operation k of part i is
and control, reduced efciency and performance [48]. Besides, the assigned to cell c
decision of inter-cell moves depends on the machine cost. Higher Zi.c binary integer variable that indicates the assignment of part i
the machine cost in the manufacturing systems like exible man- to cell c
ufacturing system paves way for the inter-cell moves. However, in ikpqc binary integer variable that indicates the precedence
relationship of operations k of part i and operation q of part
lower machine cost system like the assembly shops like watches p that are assigned to cell c
and semiconductor manufacturing, the machine duplications are
preferred and thus eliminate or reduce the inter-cell moves. How-
2.2.2. Non-linear model
ever in process industries like pharmaceutical, inter-cell is not
The non-linear mixed- integer programming formulation is as
allowed [28].
follows:
The machine duplication brings forth the scheduling exibil- C m
ity in the way that certain operations of parts are scheduled in MinimizeTC = ( Cmax Xj.c MUj )
c=1 j=1
machines available in other cell instead of the machines in the par- 
n
Ki C C
ent cell, as the machine is busy in other operation. These alternate +[ c = 1 c = 1 CFc c di [Xjik .c Yik.c Zi.c ]]
routes are termed as cross-ow choices and corresponding part i=1
k=1
/ c
c= (1)
movements are accounted as Cross-Flow Cost (CFC) in order to dif- / c
c=
n Ki C C
ferentiate from the ICC. Further, the machine duplications, even +[
i=1 k=1 c = 1 c = 1 IC c c di [(1 Xjik .c ) Yik.c Zi.c ]]
though enable scheduling exibility, the increased investment has
/ c
c=
to be economically justied and lowered utilization has to be veri- c=
/ c
ed. To achieve this, the cost element of Machine Utility Cost (MUC) Subject to:
is evaluated from the machine utility rate (MUj ) of each machine
j and makespan time. The MUj is the cost of using or hiring the 
C

machine j for unit time and is evaluated by spreading total direct Xj.c 1 j (2)
and indirect cost of machine j over its expected life cycle. Decisions c=1
 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142 119


n The second element is the cross-ow cost (CFC). The cross-ow
Zi.c 1 c (3) movement exists when the term Xjik .c Yik.c Zi.c becomes 1
i=1 (i.e. will have the value as 1). The cross-ow occurs when the
part is assigned to cell c and machine is also available in cell c,

m
but the operation is assigned to some other cell c (i.e. decision
Xj.c 1 c (4)
variablesXjik .c = 1; Yik.c = 1; Zi.c = 1& c =
/ c ).
j=1
The third element is for Inter-cell cost (ICC) where
 

C 1 Xjik .c Yik.c Zi.c ensures that part assigned to cell c
Zi.c = 1 i (5) (i.e. Zi.c = 1) and machine
 is not available in cell c which is
c=1
checked by 1 Xjik .c and hence operation assigned to cell c
(i.e.Yik.c = 1). This condition requires an inter-cell movement
C 2 (6) from cell c to cell c.
C m1 (7)
The cell formation problem has to ensure that at least one copy

C
of each machine-type j is available in any one of the cell c. Con-
Yik.c = 1 i, k (8)
straint 2 assures this condition. For a cell to be formed there should
c=1 be at least one part and one machine. Constraints 3 and 4 respec-
Yik.c Xjik .c i, k, c (9) tively checks this condition of part and machine assignment to
the cell c. Constraint 5 ensures that each part i of n parts takes
Sik 0 i, k (10) any one cell c. Hypothetically, the maximum number of possible
cells is equal to the number of parts, where each cell has one part
Cik Sik (di tik ) = 0 i, k (11)
and leads to individual production centers. On the other hand, the
Si(k+1) Cik 0 i, k = 1. . ...(Ki 1) (12) group technology concept is lost when C = 1 leading to a single
production center and C = m would result in a job shop type pro-
Cmax CiKi i (13) duction environment [19]. On this consideration, the range of C
is taken as 2 and m-1. Constraints 6 and 7 take care of the per-
((Yik.c Cik ) (Ypq.c Cpq ))ikpq.c ((Yik.c Cik )
missible range of C. Constraint 8 assures that summation of each
(Ypq.c Cpq ))(1 ikpq.c ) operation assignment is 1 so that each operation is assigned only
(14) once. Constraint 9 controls operation assignment by assigning the
ikpq.c (di tik ) + (1 ikpq.c )(dp tpq ) operation k of part i only on the presence of the required machine
c, (i, k), (p, q), i =
/ p, jpq = jik jik and further it enables cross-ow operation assignments. Con-
straint 10 satises the positive value requirements of start time
((Yik.c Cik ) (Ypq.c Cpq ))ikpq.c 0 (Sik ) of an operation k of part i. Constraint 11 ensures non-pre-
(15) emptive condition of parts by checking whether the processing
c, (i, k), (p, q), i =
/ p, jpq = jik
time di tik is equal to the difference between the completion
Xj.c , Yik.c , Zi.c {0, 1} i, k, j, c (16) time Cik and the starting time Sik of an operation k of part i. The
precedence relationship among operations of a part is satised by
ikpq.c {0, 1} (i, k), (p, q), c (17) Constraint 12. The maximum completion time of all parts Cmax (i.e.
makespan time) is evaluated by the constraint 13. Constraints 14
Where,
 and 15 check the overlapping of any two operations by evaluating
1 if machinejik is assigned to cellc the difference between the completion times of two operations k
Xjik .c =
0 otherwise of part i and q of part p that requires the same machine j avail-
able in cell c and the difference should be greater than or equal to
 total operation time of the later operation q of part p. Constraint
1 if operation k of part i is assigned to cellc 15 assures the precedence relationship among operations done
Yik.c =
0 otherwise on the machine j available in cell c. Constraints 16 and 17 repre-
sent binary integer requirements of decision variables and control
 variable.
1 if parti is assigned to cellc
Zi.c =
0 otherwise


1 if(Yik.c Cik ) (Ypq.c Cpq ) > 0orifoperation k of part i precedesoperation q of part p
ikpq.c =
0 otherwise

Eq. (1) is the cost minimization objective function and is the sum
of the three cost elements associated with the operational cost of
the CMS. The cost elements are:
The rst cost element of the objective function is the machine
utility cost (MUC). It is the sum of the product of the makespan
time Cmax (i.e. the maximum completion time of all jobs)
and the machine utility rate of the machines in all the cells

C

m The non-linearity in machine utility cost term of the objective
(i.e Xj.c MUj ) on the assumption that all machines would
c=1 j=1
be charged for the entire schedule length.
2.2.3. Linearised model
The objective terms in equation 1 is nonlinear involving prod-
ucts of binary and continuous variables i.e. Cmax * Xj.c , and product
of the binary variables Xjik .c Yik.c Zi.c and Yik.c Zi.c . Also the
constraints 14 & 15 have products involving the binary and continu-
ous decision variables. The non-linearities associated are linearized
using the standard linearization procedures [49,50].
function (i.e. Cmax * Xj.c ) is linearized by introducing a new variable
Aj.c . This variable along with the constraints given in Eqs. (18)(21)
retains the original objective function value. Aj.c becomes 0, when
120 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142

Xj.c is 0 and it is Cmax , when Xj.c is 1. The constraints given in equa-

tions 1821 are to be added to the mathematical formulation to
(Eik.c Fpq.c )ikpq.c 0 c, (i, k), (p, q), i =
/ p, jpq = jik (37)
control the values of the Aj.c
Now, as a second step, the terms Eik.c x ikpq.c and Fpq.c x ikpq.c
Aj.c M Xj.c j, c (18)
are linearized further using the same linearizing procedure used
Aj.c Cmax j, c (19) for Yik.c x Cik . The variable Gikpq.c is used for linearizing Eik.c x ikpq.c
and governing constraints are shown in Eqs. (38)(41).
Aj.c Cmax M(1 Xj.c ) j, c (20)
Gikpq.c M ikpq.c i, k, p, q, c (38)
Aj.c 0 j, c (21)
Gikpq.c Eik.c i, k, p, q, c (39)
The product of three binary decision variables Xjik .c Yik.c Zi.c
is linearized using the binary variableBik.cc and adding the con- Gikpq.c Eik.c M(1 ikpq.c ) i, k, p, q, c (40)
straints 2224 in the nonlinear formulation. Whenever all the three Gikpq.c 0 i, k, p, q, c (41)
variables Xjik .c , Yik.c , Zi.c take value of 1, then Bik.cc will be 1 and if
any one of the variables is 0, then Bik.cc will be 0. Similarly variable Hikpq.c is used for linearizing Fpq.c x ikpq.c and
the related constraints are shown in Eqs. (42)(45).
Bik.cc Xjik .c Yik.c Zi.c + 2.5 0 i, k, c, c  , c =
/ c (22)
H ikpq.c M ikpq.c i, k, p, q, c (42)
2.5 Bik.cc Xjik .c Yik.c Zi.c 0 i, k, c, c  , c =
/ c (23)
Hikpq.c Fpq.c i, k, p, q, c (43)
Bik.cc {0, 1} i, k, c, c  (24)
Hikpq.c Fpq.c M(1 ikpq.c ) i, k, p, q, c (44)
Similarly, the non-linear term Yik.c Zi.c ,is linearized using the
Hikpq.c 0 i, k, p, q, c (45)
binary variable Dik.cc and the constraints to be included in the non-
linear formulations are given in Eqs. (25)(27). Eqs. (46) and (47), with the newly introduced variables, become
linear constraints for the non-linear constraints 14 and 15.
Dik.cc Yik.c Zi.c + 1.5 0 i, k, c, c , c=
/ c (25)
(Gikpq.c Hikpq.c ) (Eik.c Fpq.c ) + (Gikpq.c Hikpq.c )
(1.5XDik.cc ) Yik.c Zi.c 0 i, k, c, c  , c =
/ c (26)

Dik.cc {0, 1} i, k, c, c  (27) ikpq.c (di tik ) + (1 ikpq.c )(dp tpq ) (46)

The non-linear constraints 14 and 15 are linearized in two steps. c, (i, k), (p, q), i =
/ p, jpq = jik
First, the non-linear term Yik.c x Cik and Ypq.c x Cpq are considered.
These terms are a product of binary variable and a continuous vari- Gikpq.c Hikpq.c 0 c, (i, k), (p, q), i =
/ p, jpq = jik (47)
able and are linearized using the integer variables Eik.c and Fpq.c
With the newly introduced variables, the linear formulation to
respectively. The variable Eik.c takes the value as Cik , if Yik.c is 1 and
the nonlinear model presented in section 2.2.2 is as follows:
0, if Yik.c equals 0. The related constraints are given in (28)(31).
Objective function:
C m n Ki C C
MinimizeTC = ( Aj.c MUj ) + [ CFc c di Bik.cc ]
c=1 j=1 i=1 k=1 c = 1 c=1

/ c
c=
c=
/ c
n Ki C C (48)
+[ ICc c di [Dik.cc Bik.cc ]]
i=1 k=1 c = 1 c=1

/ c
c= / c
c=

Subject to the following constraint sets:

E ik.c M Yik.c i, k, c (28)
Nonlinear constraints 213 in the nonlinear formulations
Eik.c Cik i, k, c (29) Binary variables dened in (16) & (17)
Eik.c Cik M(1 Yik.c ) i, k, c (30) Linear constraints 1827 (used for linearizing objective function
of the nonlinear model)
Eik.c 0 i, k, c (31) Linear constraints 2847 (used to convert the product of con-
tinuous and binary variables in the constraints 14 and 15 of the
Similarly the term Ypq.c x Cpq is linearized with the variable Fpq.c
nonlinear model).
and the related constraints are shown in Eqs. (32)(35).

F pq.c M Ypq.c p, q, c (32) 2.3. Problem complexity

Fpq.c Cpq p, q, c (33)

The CMS model under consideration needs to determine opti-
Fpq.c Cpq M(1 Ypq.c ) p, q, c (34) mal number of cells C, part-families Zi.c, machine assignments Xj.c
and optimal schedules for minimum total cost of operation (TC)
Fpq.c 0 p, q, c (35) evaluated in terms of MUC, ICC and CFC. These integrated deci-
Now, the Eqs. (14) and (15) are rewritten using Eik.c and Fpq.c sions of the proposed model make the model complex to solve. The
and are given as Eqs. (36) and (37) respectively. complexities of the CMS model under consideration are:

(Eik.c Fpq.c )ikpq.c (Eik.c Fpq.c ) (1 ikpq.c ) ikpq.c (di tik ) The cost evaluation of MUC depends on scheduling and machine
assignments. The other two costs of ICC and CFC are dependent
+(1 ikpq.c )(dp tpq ) c, (i, k), (p, q), i =
/ p, jpq = jik on the machine and part assignments. The interactions of deci-
(36) sion variables are non-linear that make the model hard (difcult
 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142
to solve) in its evaluation. Solving a non-linear mathematical for-
mulation will pose problem in the way of solvable problem size
and computational efciency.
One of the decision variables of the model, the number of cells
(C), is used as the upper limit for the evaluation of the objective
function and satisfaction of a few constraints of the mathematical
formulation. The above warrants that C should be given a specic
value to be solvable mathematically. This restricts the use of any
commercially available mathematical programming solvers like
ILOG CPLEX, LINGO etc. with C as a decision variable.
The CF problem belongs to a class of NP-complete [42,51] and
scheduling problems are classied as NP-hard [53]. Hence, for
a CF model with unknown number of cells and with integrated
cell scheduling decisions, a combinatorial explosion occurs with
increase in number of parts and machines.
The decisions of number of cells, part and machine assignments
are discrete; have a huge search space; less known details about
search space; and have many local optimal solutions making it
multi-modal.
All the above complexities warrants the need of usage of intel-
ligent search heuristic so that an optimal or near optimal solution
can be found in a reasonable computational time. The next section
details the proposed meta-heuristic solution methodology.
3. Adjustable grouping genetic algorithm (AGGA)
Due to huge and complex search space of the model, a GA based
intelligent search heuristic is proposed. GA was developed by John
Holland with the goal to abstract and adapt the search heuristics
based on the mechanics of natural genetics and to design articial
systems software using the natural mechanisms of survival of the
ttest [37]. The GA has been applied to variety of problem domains
and applications. And also, GA is applied extensively to CMS design
problems [36]. The model complexities with many local optima
leading to multi-modal search space require the usage of popu-
lation based heuristic of GA. Besides, Grouping Genetic Algorithm
(GGA) is often used for cell formation problems that consider with-
out pre-specied number of cells. On these considerations, a variant
of GGA named as Adjustable Grouping Genetic Algorithm (AGGA)
is proposed. Fig. 2 shows the structure of the proposed AGGA and
the rest of this section explains its various stages.
3.1. Data input and parameter initialization
The following design parameters are given as input:
number of parts (n),
number of machine-types (m),
demand di of each part i,
number of operations (Ki ) of each part i,
machine required (jik ) for each operation Oik and its processing
time tik
machine utility rate MUj of each machine j
inter-cell (ICc c ) and cross-ow (CFc c ) cost of moving parts from
cell c to cell c.
The genetic parameters and its initialisation in the proposed
AGGA are as follows:
In general, GA literature uses probability of cross-over Pc and
probability of mutation Pm in the range of 0.51 and 0.0010.1
respectively [52]. The Pc and Pm are initialized with in this range.
Population size p size and maximum number of generations
max gen are designed based on the complexity of the problem i.e.
121
Cm , m, n where Cm is maximum possible number of cell groupings
and it equals to m-1. Eqs. (49) and (50) give the p size and max gen
respectively.
p size = C m m (49)
max gen = C m m n (50)
Generation gap GG and Generation gap factor GGF are used for
adaptive parameter updating and are initialized with a value
between 0.5 and 1.
Adaptive factor AF is designed based on problem size and is given
by Eq. (51).
max gen/(n m) (51)
Generation counter (gen) is initiated as 0.
The parameter of global best solution (TCbest ) is initiated with a
very large number as the objective is a minimization function.
3.2. Generation of initial population
This step generates an initial population with the number of
chromosomes equal to p size. Each chromosome represents three
decision parameters of the problem namely number of cells C,
machine assignment Xj.c and part assignment Zi.c . The rst gene of
the chromosome is number of cell groupings C and it is assigned a
random integer generated between 2 and Cm . The next Cm * m genes
are for machine assignment decisions Xj.c and indicate the presence
or absence of a machine in each cell with a binary number (i.e. 1
indicates presence and 0 absence). This section is designed such
that to adapt machine duplications to the extent of maximum of
one machine-type in each cell c. The values (i.e. 0 or 1) for machine
assignment are generated at random. Last (Cm -1) * n genes are for
parts assignment Zi.c . The alleles take the integer values between
1 and C for each set that ranges from 2 to Cm . The part assign-
ment values are generated using the heuristic that assigns each
part to the cell that has the maximum number of machines that
are required for the operation of the part. The length of the chro-
mosome (l) is given by the Eqs. (52) and (53). Fig. 3 explains the
chromosome representation for n number of parts and m number
of machine-types.
l1 = 1 + C m m (52)
l = l1 + (C m 1) n (53)
3.3. Evaluation
The chromosomes are evaluated to check the quality of solutions
and intelligently direct the search towards optimum solution. First
each chromosome undergoes a feasibility check and modulation
(if needed), and then tness parameter is determined by decod-
ing the chromosomes by adjusting (i.e. neglecting some part of
chromosomes) it depending upon the number of cell groupings of
the chromosome and applying a scheduling heuristic procedure.
This section delineates the chromosome modulation and tness
evaluation.
3.3.1. Chromosome modulation
The chromosomes need to satisfy the constraints specied in
Eqs. (2)(7) to derive a feasible solution. The genetic coding is such
that each part i is allocated only one gene and thus assures only one
cell assignment for each part (i.e. constraint 5). Further, the gene
of number of cell groupings is assigned a random integer within 2
to Cm and thus ensures constraints 6 and 7. The other constraints
122 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142

Fig. 2. Structure of proposed AGGA.

Fig. 3. Chromosome representation of AGGA.

24 are to be checked and modulated if required. The heuristics for

modulation are as follows:
Heuristic 1: Constraint of each machine-type j should have at
least a copy (shown in Eq. (2)) is checked and repaired by the
Heuristic 1 (H1). This heuristic counts the number of copies of each
machine j and if any machine found to have no copies, then a ran-
dom cell number is chosen within the range for number of cell
groupings and the particular machine gene in the selected cell is
changed to 1. Fig. 4 shows the pseudocode of H1.
Heuristic 2: This heuristic checks whether each cell c has at least
one machine j assigned to it. This is done by checking number of
machines in each cell c and if any cell has the count of 0, then a Fig. 4. Pseudocode of H1.
 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142
Fig. 5. Pseudocode of H2.
Fig. 6. Pseudocode of H3.
random machine number is generated and assigned to that cell.
Fig. 5 shows the pseudocode of the Heuristic 2 (H2).
Heuristic 3: The heuristic 3 (H3) checks and assures that each cell
c should have at least one part. In this repair mechanism, number
of parts in each cell c is counted and if any cell has no part assigned
to it, then a random part number is selected and the gene of that
part is assigned with that cell number. The condition is rechecked
and repeated till the constraint is satised. Fig. 6 gives the pseudo
code of H3.
3.3.2. Fitness evaluation
The objective of the proposed CMS model is to minimize the
total operating cost (TC) which is the sum of MUC, CFC and ICC.
Thus, the tness function of AGGA is to evaluate the TC given by
Eq. (1). This evaluation requires decoding of the chromosome and
the decisions on number of cell groupings C, machine assignments
Xj.c and part assignments Zi.c are derived. For instance, consider
the chromosome shown in Fig. 7 with 6 parts and 4 machine-types.
The decoding of the chromosome is initiated from the rst gene
which is decision on C. The other decisions of machines and parts
Fig. 7. Sample Chromosome decoding for C = 2.
123
Table 2
Cell formation details of the sample chromosome.
Cell number (c) Machines (Xj.c ) Parts (Zi.c )
1 1,2,4 1,2,5,6
2 1,2,3 3,4
assignment are taken based on C. For the sample chromosome, the
value of C is 2. Hence, the machine assignments for cell 1 and cell
2 are considered (i.e. locus 29) and that of parts assignment are
for C = 2 (i.e. locus 1419). The rest of the genes (i.e. locus 1013
and locus 2025) are not considered for any evaluation. Thus, the
sample chromosome is decoded as machines 1, 2, 4 in cell 1 and 1,
2, 3 in cell 2. The corresponding part assignments are 1, 2, 5, 6 in
cell 1 and 3, 4 in cell 2. Table 2 gives the CF details of chromosome
shown in Fig. 7.
The processing characteristics of tik , jik of each operation Oik
and Ki , di of each part i are used to evaluate the optimal makespan
schedule by adopting the methodology of Jawahar et al. [54]. Based
on schedule and other decisions of C, Xj.c , Yik.c , Zi.c , the TC is eval-
uated. In similar fashion, the tness of all the chromosomes of the
population is evaluated and the best t chromosome with mini-
mum TC is stored as elite chromosome. The best tness value of
the population (TCpop ) is compared with global best tness (TCbest )
and updated accordingly.
3.4. Stopping criteria
On the completion of evaluation of a generation, the termination
of algorithm is checked. The stopping criterion used in AGGA is
the attainment of the maximum number of generations (max gen).
The process of creation of new generation, evaluation and updating
of the genetic parameters and global best solution are repeated
till the satisfaction of stopping criterion. Otherwise, the algorithm
terminates by displaying the output.
3.5. Creation of next generation
At each generation, the AGGA applies the genetic operators
on the current population to produce the population for the suc-
cessive generations. The genetic operators of selection, cross-over
and mutation make GA to work intelligently and direct the search
towards the global optimum. The three modules of the new popu-
lation generation are as follows:
3.5.1. Selection module
The common selection methods like roulette wheel selection
and tournament selection have suffered the aliasing problem i.e.
problem in discrimination of peaks and insufcient selection of
points leading to improper periodicities of search space and may
result in fewer dominate solutions to take part in selection pro-
cess [37]. Although, this characteristics of selection method may
effect in preserving the good solutions (i.e.) selection pressure, it
failed to maintain the population diversity and hence may lead to
premature convergence. Further, population diversity is essential
for improved GAs exploration and a higher degree is often desired
as a low degree of diversity lead to irrelevant search [52]. There is
always a trade-off between the selection pressure and the popula-
tion diversity. Siva Sathya and Radhika [55] proposed a migration
based GA, named as Nomadic GA (NGA) that is featured to capture
low-t individuals in the new population generation process and
inferred, through the experimentations with bench mark math-
ematical functions, that the convergence is better in optimized
solution along with speed. On these considerations, the proposed
AGGA uses the selection operator of NGA along with the selection
pressure and the generation gap and is given below.
124 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142
Fig. 8. Illustration of the selection module.
Step 1: Division of the individuals of the current population
equally into three groups as best, medium and worst. The entire
population are ranked based on the individuals tness values and
are grouped as best with rst 1/3 of total rank, as medium with next
1/3 of total rank and as worst group with remaining individuals.
Step 2: Preservation of the best solution in each generation by
carrying over the elite individual (i.e. individual with the best t-
ness in the population and is ranked rst) in the best group to the
next generation.
Step 3: Determination of number of individuals (NOIg ) to be
selected from each group g for reproduction. The NOIg is decided by
the selection pressure of group (SPg ) and Generation Gap (GG). The
GG decides the percentage of population produced by reproduc-
tion. Eq. (54) gives the NOIg of best and medium groups and worst
group contributes the rest.
NOI g = GG p size SP g (54)
In this paper, the best group (i.e.) the group having the good
individuals is given more selection pressure of 50% (i.e. SPbest = 0.5).
The medium group is given importance with their selection pres-
sure of 25% (i.e. SPmedium = 0.25) and worst group makes the rest (i.e.
NOIworst = p size (NOIbest + NOImedium )). The GG is applied such that
non-overlapping population is created in initial generations and in
successive generation GG is reduced to allow overlapping popula-
tion (i.e. existing good individuals are passed to next generation).
Step 4: Selection of individuals equal to NOIg by random process.
Fig. 8 illustrates the procedural steps of the new population
generation with a p size of 15.
3.5.2. Cross-over module
The cross-over module is responsible for the neighborhood solu-
tion production and explores the search space in the quest for
nding the global optimum. Two individuals are selected at random
within a group. If probability of cross-over (Pc ) is satised, cross-
over operators are applied on the selected individuals and two
off-springs are produced. Otherwise, the copies of the selected indi-
viduals are passed to the next generation. This process is repeated
till the number of individuals to be produced in each group NOIg is
satised.
This paper uses uniform crossover for cell section and multi-
point cross-over for machine and part assignment section. The
section-wise crossover is as follows:
1. The number of cells C as they occupy only one gene in the geno-
type, the uniform crossover of this gene of the two selected
parents is done with 50% probability (pcno ). A random number
(rcno ) between 0 and 1 is generated and if rcno is less than pcno
then the genes of the two parents are interchanged.
2. In machine and part assignment genes, the multi-point crossover
is carried out. Each of these sections are divided into two and in
each sub-division two cutting points are selected at random and
the cut section of two parents are interchanged to form new off-
springs. The sub-division of sections is done to assure that full
length of chromosome take part in crossover.
Fig. 9 explains the proposed multipoint crossover operator in
detail.
 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142 125

Fig. 9. Cross-over module.

3.5.3. Mutation module Table 3

Adaptive evaluation when AF = 10 and max gen = 100.
Mutation is needed to avoid search endings in local optimum
and premature convergence. The AGGA uses inclusion of new indi- Generations Current Values Updated values
viduals when the condition of mutation probability Pm is met. A new
GG Pc Pm GG Pc Pm
chromosome is generated by the mechanism given in initial pop-
110 1 1 0.2000 0.9900 0.9900 0.1980
ulation. The best individual is not considered for mutation process
1120 0.9900 0.9900 0.1980 0.9801 0.9703 0.1941
as elitism has to be preserved. 2130 0.9801 0.9703 0.1941 0.9703 0.9415 0.1883
3140 0.9703 0.9415 0.1883 0.9606 0.9044 0.1809
4150 0.9606 0.9044 0.1809 0.9510 0.8601 0.1720
3.6. Parameter updating 5160 0.9510 0.8601 0.1720 0.9415 0.8097 0.1619
6170 0.9415 0.8097 0.1619 0.9321 0.7547 0.1509
To improve the computational efciency, the genetic parame- 7180 0.9321 0.7547 0.1509 0.9227 0.6964 0.1393
ters of Pc and Pm are varied in line with the generation gap (GG). 8190 0.9227 0.6964 0.1393 0.9135 0.6362 0.1272
91100 0.9135 0.6362 0.1272 0.9044 0.5754 0.1151
This paper considers initially GG as 1, Pc and Pm as 1 and 0.2
respectively. However, in initial generations, setting higher GG,
Pc lead to higher exploration of the search space and higher Pm 
GG = GGxGGF (55)
leads to exploitation. The values are decreased in further genera-
tions linearly by the generation gap factor (GGF). This factor works Pc = Pc x GG 
(56)
in analogy with the quenching mechanism of simulated anneal-

ing meta-heuristic where temperature is slowly cooled to get ne Pm = Pm x GG (57)
metal structure. Similarly, GG is reduced by GGF and further Pc and

Pm are reduced with updated GG (GG ). With the decreasing GG, 3.7. Output
the number of individuals required for replacement also reduces
and leads to lesser computational time. Eqs. (55)(57) represent The AGGA provides the output of the minimized total operat-
  
the adaptive evaluation of GG , Pc and Pm adopted in this work. ing cost TC and cost elements of MUC, ICC and CFC. The optimal
Table 3 gives the adaption parameters for generation when AF = 10 decisions of number of cells C, machine assignments Xj.c , part
  
and max gen = 100. The parameters GG , Pc and Pm are updated and assignments Zi.c that make up the cells are given. Further, the opti-
 
set as current parameters GG, Pc and Pm (i.e. GG = GG ; Pc = Pc ; mal makespan schedule is provided which gives the decisions on

Pm = Pm ) at the end every number of generations given by AF. operation assignments (considering cross-ow choices) Yik.c with

Table 4
Design and genetic parameters used in illustrative problem.

Particulars Data Source/generation method Data value

Part machine incidence matrix Number of parts n Adopted from Mahdavi et al. [56] Shown in Table 5
Number of machine-types m
Number of operations Ki of each part i
Machines required jik

Processing data Operation sequence k random allocation Shown in Table 6

Part demand di Uniform distribution in the range of 100200
Processing time tik Uniform distribution in the range of 212
Due date ddi Set as 3 times the total processing time of part i
Machine utility rate MUj (in Rupees per minute) Direct and indirect cost for an assumed lifetime of 5 years Shown in Table 7
Inter-cell ICCc c and cross-ow CFCc c of per part Assuming linear layout and cells are at equi-distant Shown in Table 8

Genetic parameters Probability of cross-over Pc Initialized in AGGA 1

Probability of mutation Pm 0.2
Generation Gap GG 1
Generation Gap Factor GGF 0.99
126 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142

Table 5 Table 8
Part-machine incidence matrix of illustrative problem. Inter-cell and Cross-ow Cost for unit part.

Machine (j) To From Cell 1 Cell 2 Cell 3 Cell 4 Cell 5

Part (i) 1 2 3 4 5 6 Cell 1 0 10 20 30 40

Cell 2 10 0 10 20 30
1 1 1 Cell 3 20 10 0 10 20
2 1 1 1 Cell 4 30 20 10 0 10
3 1 1 Cell 5 40 30 20 10 0
4 1 1
5 1 1 1
6 1 1 1
initial population given in Table 9. The elite individual (i.e. best
1 represents part i has operation in the machine j.
t individual with chromosome number 13) is shown as bold in
Table 10. The next generation (i.e. gen = 1) is created from the 0th
Table 6 generation by applying selection, crossover and mutation discussed
Processing characteristics of example problem.
in previous section. Fig. 11 explains the cross-over mechanism of
Part i Operation No. k Demand di Due date ddi the chromosome pair of 10 and 27 to form new chromosomes of
1 2 3
10 and 27 . Table 11 gives the chromosome of the new generation
gen = 1. Table 11 also column-wise shows crossover chromosome
1 jik 4 5 120 5400
pairs, cell section crossover (1 indicates interchange of genes
tik 10 5
between crossing chromosomes and 0 represents no interchange),
2 jik 1 6 3 150 4950 cut point pairs of multipoint crossover respectively, and mutated
tik 2 6 3
chromosomes in shaded form(i.e. yellow color). In Table 11, the
3 jik 5 4 190 7980 chromosome in bold represents the elite individual and it is trans-
tik 5 9
ferred from previous generation to preserve elitism.
4 jik 6 1 200 9000 The adaptive parameter updating is done for every set of gener-
tik 3 12 ation decided by AF which is set as 5 (i.e. max gen/n*m = 180/6*6)
5 jik 2 3 6 100 3600 for this illustration. Hence for every 5 number of generations,
tik 5 2 5 the genetic parameters of Pc , Pm , GG is decreased by the factor
6 jik 3 2 1 170 6630 GGF. For instance, at the end of 5th generation, Pc , Pm , GG are
tik 6 3 4 updated as 0.99, 0.198, and 0.99 respectively (Refer Table 3). All the
above process is repeated till the termination criterion of max gen
(i.e. Cm *m*n = 5*6*6 = 180 generations) is reached and then output
decisions of start time Sik and completion time Cik , for each opera- is produced.
tion Oik .
4.2. Parameter tuning
4. Numerical illustration
The meta-heuristic algorithms are guided by set of parameters.
This section illustrates the proposed AGGA methodology with These parameter values are mostly problem specic [57] and hence
a literature problem from Mahdavi et al. [55]. The proposed AGGA each and every problem type needs a parameter tuning for the bet-
methodology is coded in Matlab R2010 and problem is run in X86 ter performance of the algorithm. On this concern, a parameter
based computer. tuning of proposed AGGA is done with respect to better conver-
gence and improved computational time. There are several tuning
4.1. Input data and AGGA procedure methods like F-RACE, Response Surface Methodology (RSM), and
Sequential Parameter Optimisation Toolbox (SPOT) available as of
The design data and genetic parameters of the sample problem now (Refer [58] for detailed description of the tuning methods).
are listed in Table 4, and their data are given in the Tables 58 . This paper uses SPOT for parameter tuning that is one of the effec-
An initial population (i.e. 0th generation with generation tive tuning procedures that enable learning from experiments [58].
counter gen = 0) with the population size of 30 (i.e. Cm * m = 5 * The SPOT procedure uses the available range of parameter set-
6 = 30) is generated using the methodology mentioned in Section tings and builds several meta-models using these parameters. The
3.2. Table 9 shows the chromosomes of an initial population. The meta-model output and performance helps to improve the knowl-
chromosome modulation heuristics are applied to infeasible chro- edge of search space and establish a relationship between the input
mosomes and tness values are evaluated as discussed in section parameter settings and the performance of algorithm by sequential
3.3. Fig. 10 explains the feasibility check and modulation of infea- approach of the meta-models.
sible chromosome number 28 given in Table 9. Table 10 lists the The parameters of the AGGA are probability of crossover (Pc ),
modulated, evaluated, ranked and grouped chromosomes of the probability of mutation (Pm ), generation gap factor (GGF), popula-

Table 7
Machine Utility Rate (MUj ).

Row No. Particulars Machine j

1 2 3 4 5 6

1 Direct cost for its expected life period (Purchase 1000000 1500000 1000000 1000000 400000 700000
cost + Overhead + Maintenance cost salvage value)
2 Indirect cost during its life period (labour + power + overheads) 1160000 1380000 2168000 2600000 2192000 1604000
3 Expected life period in minutes (assuming 5 1440000 1440000 1440000 1440000 1440000 1440000
years 300 days/year 16 h/day 60 min)
4 Machine utility rate per minute MUj (Row(1 + 2)/Row 3) 1.5 2 2.2 2.5 1.8 1.6
 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142 127

Table 9
Chromosomes of the initial population (gen = 0).

Cr. no. Chromosomes

1 5 000000 011011 001111 010110 010111 112212 322211 124341 251145

2 4 111111 111001 001101 110100 001110 122112 313211 231312 252342
3 2 001101 011001 001101 000111 000110 211111 111313 234132 133542
4 4 111001 110110 001001 100000 011100 111122 321212 231411 112252
5 2 111010 000110 001101 111110 100011 221221 221111 231114 414114
6 2 000000 010100 110000 011000 110001 222121 113333 212212 222311
7 3 010111 010100 001111 101001 101001 112112 121323 331121 525521
8 3 001001 100110 100100 100110 000111 121122 331223 133212 215342
9 3 000110 111100 001110 110100 001000 121111 313321 333434 151344
10 3 111100 111001 101111 100010 000010 121122 321132 142121 443114
11 3 101000 111100 111011 001011 001110 111222 331322 342212 314531
12 3 000110 111011 111010 101001 110001 212211 131313 131432 353143
13 2 110110 110100 011011 001100 001100 212111 311212 332322 152514
14 3 110001 100001 101010 110110 010111 112121 113321 423413 115342
15 4 010111 000111 011100 100110 110110 111221 231233 142312 121243
16 5 100111 011111 100000 010100 001000 222222 122221 412423 144222
17 2 001100 100110 100111 110101 101110 211211 321232 113221 231222
18 3 101001 011101 111101 110100 101011 121112 213233 334111 215344
19 5 100011 110011 011001 111101 011101 122112 311133 342423 322451
20 3 111000 011100 100100 000101 010100 121111 113223 332144 415453
21 3 000110 010001 001101 000000 001101 222122 131311 442132 554522
22 2 010110 001010 101010 111001 100011 122212 231232 343233 312533
23 5 011110 100011 010101 111110 100110 221112 333222 434211 313121
24 3 111101 100001 010110 110010 011111 121212 113112 143322 125125
25 4 110101 10100 101101 101011 001011 221222 111322 412424 423521
26 4 101101 100010 011100 110111 010101 122221 133121 443432 155423
27 4 000000 100111 010001 001110 001011 222122 331313 131411 242513
28 4 100110 000010 000000 000001 010000 111111 233122 321211 535414
29 2 011001 110101 111010 010000 011101 121121 121121 211113 233251
30 5 110011 010110 011010 001100 101100 211112 321122 442433 543123

Fig. 10. Feasibility Check and modulation of Chromosome number 28 shown in Table 8.

Fig. 11. Cross-over of chromosome number 10 and 27 to form 10 and 27 .

tion size (p size), maximum number of generation (max gen) and
adaptive factor (AF). The rst three parameters i.e. Pc , Pm , GGF are
set as higher values and are adjusted in the adaptive evaluations
of AGGA. Hence, these three require no tuning and thus, the last
three parameters of p size, max gen and AF are alone considered.
Moreover, these parameters are set based on the problem size and
are given by equations 4951. The ranges of these parameters are
set with the values both in higher and lower values of the normal
setting values given by Eqs. (49)(51). The ranges used are lower
values of 1/5th and half and the higher values of 2 and 5 times the
normal values.
Figs. 1214 give the convergence and the computational time of
different parameter settings of p size, max gen and AF respectively.
Fig. 12 reveals that larger populations have good convergence as
large number of feasible solutions are generated and evaluated per
generation. However, increased in population size has increased
the computational time. From the experimentation on maximum
number of generations (Fig. 13), higher max gen have no effect
on the convergence as the illustrative problem converges mostly
around 50 generations. Hence, increased max gen has no effect on
convergence but increases computational time. However, Fig. 13
shows that graph corresponding to max gen/5 has poor conver-
128 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142

Table 10
Ranked chromosomes of initial population.

Cr. No Chromosomes Fitness value Rank Group

13 2 111111 110100 011011 001100 001100 212111 311212 332322 152514 59832 1 Best
17 2 001100 110111 100111 110101 101110 211211 321232 113221 231222 62188 2
22 2 110111 001010 101010 111001 100011 122212 231232 343233 312533 62612 3
5 2 111011 000110 001101 111110 100011 221221 221111 231114 414114 62712 4
24 3 111101 100001 010110 110010 011111 121212 113112 143322 125125 63700 5
6 2 000011 111100 110000 011000 110001 222121 113333 212212 222311 64436 6
3 2 101101 011011 001101 000111 000110 211111 111313 234132 133542 64972 7
14 3 110101 100001 101010 110110 010111 112121 113321 423413 115342 66700 8
29 2 011001 110111 111010 010000 011101 121121 121121 211113 233251 70036 9
8 3 001001 100110 110100 100110 000111 121122 331223 133212 215342 71200 10

21 3 000110 110001 001101 000010 001101 222122 132311 442132 554522 72976 11 Medium
20 3 111001 011110 100100 000101 010100 121111 113223 332144 415453 74100 12
12 3 000110 111011 111010 101001 110001 212211 131313 131432 353143 74500 13
4 4 111001 110110 001001 100000 011100 111122 321212 231411 112252 75700 14
18 3 101001 011111 111101 110100 101011 121112 213233 334111 215344 83400 15
11 3 101000 111100 111011 001011 001110 111222 331322 342212 314531 83500 16
28 4 101110 010010 000001 000001 010000 111111 233122 321214 535414 86200 17
10 3 111100 111001 101111 100010 000010 121122 321132 142121 443114 88300 18
27 4 100000 100111 010001 001110 001011 222122 331313 132411 242513 89200 19
7 3 010111 110100 001111 101001 101001 112112 121323 331121 525521 93760 20

9 3 000110 111100 001111 110100 001000 121111 313321 333434 151344 94208 21 Worst
25 4 110101 010100 101101 101011 001011 221222 111322 412324 423521 106700 22
26 4 101101 100010 011100 110111 010101 122221 133121 441432 155423 110500 23
16 5 100111 011111 100000 010100 001000 222222 122221 412423 144352 113876 24
2 4 111111 111001 001101 110100 001110 122112 313211 231314 252342 116000 25
30 5 110011 010110 011010 001100 101100 211112 321122 442433 543123 116400 26
15 4 010111 000111 011100 100110 110110 111221 231233 142312 121243 116484 27
1 5 100000 011011 001111 110110 010111 112212 322211 124341 251345 118000 28
23 5 011110 100011 010101 111110 100110 221112 333222 434211 313524 128400 29
19 5 100011 110011 011001 111101 011101 122112 311133 342423 322451 134800 30

Note: Shaded genes (red color) indicate modulated genes. (For interpretation of the references to color in this table legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this
article.)

Fig. 12. Effect of population size.

gence but lesser computational time. Thus, number of generation
corresponding to max gen/2 has better performance in terms of
both computational time and convergence. The study on varia-
tion of adaptive factors (AF) using values of AF/2, AF/5, AF*2 and
AF*5 shows that rst two has poor convergence and better com-
putational than the latter. The lesser time is due to the adaptive
evaluations which reduces Pc , Pm and generation gap through gen-
erations very quickly leading to quicker computations and lesser
computational time. Thus it can be summarized that parameter set-
ting as given by equations 2426 can be used for fair convergence
in a reasonable computational time.
Table 11
New Generation (gen = 1) created from initial population.

Cr. no. Cell section Crossing pair Cr. no Chromosomes Fitness value

N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142

Best t copied 13 2 111111 110100 011011 001100 001100 212111 311212 314322 132514 59832
3&8 0 (10,13),(31,17),(39,42),(47,52) 3 2 101101 010110 001100 100110 000111 211111 131222 234214 213542 56488
8 3 001001 101011 110101 000111 000110 121122 311213 133142 153342 71300
Mutated Chromosome 29 3 011000 000110 100111 101111 100100 222111 313221 221312 322425 74912
29 & 24 1 (2,13),(31,24),(36,37),(45,48) 24 2 011001 110111 010110 110000 011101 121221 113112 141132 125345 69036
24 & 29 1 (2,15),(19,20),(38,37),(45,48) 24 2 011001 110111 110110 010010 011111 121211 113112 131142 125345 69036
29 3 111101 100001 011010 110000 011101 121122 121321 243123 234251 77500
8 & 13 0 (10,14),(21,27),(32,35),(45,50) 8 3 001011 100100 010100 101100 000111 212122 331223 114322 115342 73788
13 2 111111 110110 111011 000110 001100 121111 311212 333214 232514 64400
6 & 13 0 (10,12),(28,17),(36,43),(52,50) 6 2 001011 110100 110011 001100 001001 222111 311212 232142 132354 55188
13 2 111111 111100 011000 011000 110100 212121 113323 314322 352514 65200
Mutated Chromosome 24 4 110100 110011 110101 011000 001010 111222 312111 133224 443441 95000
24 & 13 1 (2,9),(22,30),(32,43),(52,49) 13 2 111111 100100 011011 000010 011110 121212 113112 314322 125314 57100
24 & 14 0 (9,15),(28,31),(41,43),(47,54) 24 3 111101 100001 100110 110010 010111 121212 113321 143213 115342 67700
14 3 110101 100001 011010 110110 011111 112121 113112 421322 125342 83256
5&8 0 (2,5),(25,30),(36,40),(44,47) 5 2 101011 010110 001101 111110 000111 221222 321131 133214 452134 65112
10 & 27 1 (5,11),(18,22),(39,40),(44,54) 10 4 111000 100101 101101 001010 000010 121122 321132 132411 242315 92100
27 3 100100 111011 010011 100110 001011 222122 321313 142123 245113 71900
21 &7 0 (4,7),(22,31),(40,43),(46,55) 21 3 000111 110001 001101 001001 101001 222122 131323 441132 524531 73564
7 3 010110 110100 001111 100010 001101 112112 122311 342132 314522 93472
11 & 10 1 (9,14),(28,29),(41,42),(45,54) 11 3 101000 111001 111111 001011 000010 111222 331132 342123 243115 83600
10 3 111100 111100 101111 100010 001110 121122 321322 142232 514235 93300
Mutated Chromosome 18 2 010001 111110 101100 000111 101010 212222 211223 133143 354353 57048
18 & 9 1 (3,12),(17,31),(32,43),(44,55) 9 3 001001 011110 101101 110100 101011 121112 213233 324111 215344 88768
Mutated Chromosome 2 5 010110 101111 110000 011001 111101 112212 322221 342424 335421 129000
2 & 19 1 (6,12),(21,30),(33,40),(45,51) 19 4 100011 111001 011001 110100 001111 122112 313233 331214 252431 90200
23 & 2 0 (6,15),(17,30),(37,43),(50,51) 23 5 011111 111001 000101 110100 001110 221112 313211 434211 253514 121900
Mutated Chromosome 2 5 100110 101000 100111 101110 110101 111112 231332 224114 414325 127100
Mutated Chromosome 25 3 101010 111110 001011 100010 011110 221211 233122 121423 142444 80700
25 & 23 0 (3,7),(25,26),(36,39),(45,54) 23 5 010101 100011 010101 111111 000110 221122 113212 412324 413524 130500

129
130 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142

Fig. 13. Effect of maximum generations.

Fig. 14. Effect of adaptive factor.

4.3. Output Table 12

Cell formation details for illustrative problem.

The output of the illustrative problem with tuned parameters is Cell number c Machines assignment Xj.c Parts assignment Zi.c
presented here. Fig. 15 shows the chromosome with the optimal 1 1,2,3,6 2,4,5,6
tness value (i.e. minimum TC of 41000). Table 12 gives the cell 2 1,4,5 1,3
formation details with machines and parts assigned to each cell.
Fig. 16 shows the Gantt chart of optimal schedule with the mini-
mum makespan time 3000. The cross-ow operation 3 of part 6 that
optimal cell groupings. It is to be noted from Table 12 that machine
is required for achieving optimum minimum makespan is shown
1 has two copies in optimal CF conguration. This duplication of
in Fig. 16. Table 13 presents the cost evaluation of the CMS with
machine 1 together with 6 machines makes totally 7 machines with
 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142 131

Fig. 15. Chromosome with optimal tness.

Fig. 16. Gantt chart of optimal schedule.

Table 13
Cost evaluation of optimal cell groupings.

Cost parameter Cost Remarks

Machine utility cost (MUC) 39300 Makespan time MUR (3000 13.1)
Cross-ow movement cost (CFC) 1700 O63 has cross-ow movement (170 10)
Inter-cell movement cost (ICC) 0 No inter-cellular movement
Total Cost (TC) 41000 TC = MUC + CFC + ICC

their total machine utility rate (MUR) as 13.1. The product of MUR ings and allocation of operations to machines) of the proposed
and makespan gives the MUC as 39300. With this, the cross-ow CMS model and the literature CMS models and
material handling cost of 1700 is added to give the minimum total analyzing the effect of number of cells (C) on the costs elements
operation cost of 41000. of TC.

5. Model validity
The CMS model presented in this paper optimizes structural
decisions of part-machine grouping and number of cells along with
the operational decisions of scheduling under machine duplications
and cross-ow environment in an integrated way to the objective of
minimum total cost of operation (TC). The considerations of inte-
grated approach and the inclusion of number of cells as decision
variable in the proposed integrated CMS model is validated by
studying the effect of integrated approach by comparing the TC
and the design parameters (number of cells, part-machine group-
5.1. Effect of integrated approach
The effect of the integrated approach is studied by operational
cost comparison with the set of problems from the literature. As
the proposed and literature CMS models have considered differ-
ent decision parameters and objectives, the comparison uses the
primary data of the part machine incidence matrix (i.e. the num-
ber of operations and required machines for each operation). The
incidence matrix is adopted from the problem source data and
other data are considered as follows: The operation sequences and
processing time are taken if available in the literature, else allo-
 132
Table 14
Operational cost comparative study.
No Problem Size Problem Source Source data design decisions and its corresponding operational costs Proposed model decisions and its corresponding operational costs

n m Cell formation Details MUC CFC ICC TC Cell formation Details MUC CFC ICC TC

C c Xj.c Zi.c C c Xj.c Zi.c

1 7 7 Banerjee and 2 1 2,4 2,7 64350 0 0 64350 2 1 1,3,5,6,7 1,3,4,5,6 53911 2500 0 56411
Das [59]
2 1,3,5,6,7 1,3,4,5,6 2 2,4,5 2,7

2 10 10 Chang et al. [10] 3 1 3,7,8 3,4,6,9, 10 114270 0 5800 120070 2 1 1,2, 4,5,6,9, 10 3,4, 6, 9, 10 114270 0 3900 118170
2 2,4,6 1,7
3 1,5,9, 10 2,5,8 2 3,7,8 1,2, 5,7,8

3 11 7 Boctor [60] 3 1 2,3 1,2,6,9 40959 0 2800 43759 2 1 2,3 1, 2,6,9 40959 0 1500 42459
2 1,5,6 3,7,11 2 1,4,5,6,7 3,4,5,7,8, 10, 11
3 4,7 4,5,8, 10

4 12 7 Bagheri and 3 1 4,7 2,5 3159310 0 150220 3309530 2 1 3 4, 6 3159310 0 24080 3183390
Bashiri [61]

N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142

2 2,3,5 1,3,4,6,7,9, 10, 2 1,2,4,5,6,7 1,2,3, 5,7,8,9, 10,
11, 12 11, 12
3 1,6 8

5 12 10 Sudhakara 3 1 1,3,6 1,5,9, 10 50429 0 7500 57929 2 1 1,2,3,4, 5,6,8, 10 1,2,3, 5,7,8, 9, 50429 0 1700 52129
Pandian and 10,12
Mahapatra [62]
2 2,5,8, 10 2,3,7,8, 12
3 4,7,9 4,6, 11 2 7, 9 4, 6, 11

6 20 8 Paydar et al. [9] 3 1,3 2,8,9, 11, 13, 14, 87040 0 13000 100040 2 1 1,2,3,5 8, 11, 14, 16 65120 2000 7000 74120
16, 17, 19
2,4,7,8 3,4,6,7, 10, 12, 2 1,3,4,5,6,7,8 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9,
18, 20 10, 12, 13, 15,
17, 18, 19, 20
5,6 1,5, 15

7 15 12 Goncalves and 4 1 3, 6,8 3, 5,7,9 83200 0 0 83200 3 1 1,2,4,9, 11 1,2,4,6,8, 11, 12, 83200 0 0 83200
Resende [63] 13
2 5,7, 10, 12 10, 14, 15
3 1,4,11 1,4,6, 12, 13 2 5,7, 10, 12 10, 14, 15
4 2,9 2,8, 11 3 3, 6,8 3, 5,7,9

8 24 14 Keeling et al. 4 1 1, 12, 13 6,7,8, 18 223000 0 1500 224500 3 1 4, 12, 13 8, 18, 22 102550 300 0 102850
[21]
2 2,3, 10, 11 3,4, 21, 24 2 1,2,3,4,5,7,8, 10, 1,2,3,4,6,7, 17,
11, 13 20, 21, 23
3 4,5,7 1,2, 17, 19, 20,
23
4 6,8,9, 14 5,9, 10, 11, 12, 3 4,6,8,9, 14 5,9, 10, 11, 12,
13, 14, 15, 16, 22 13, 14, 15, 16, 19

9 20 20 Adil and 4 1 1,9, 10, 12, 1,9, 12, 14, 17, No solution 4 1 8, 11, 13, 17 15 97510 800 1300 99610
Rajamani [17] 18 20 produced in
ILOG solver
saying search
space
exceeded
2 2,3,5, 11, 2,4,6,7, 11, 15, 2 4,6,7,8, 10, 13, 5,8,13,16
14, 16, 17 19 15, 17
3 4,6,7, 13,15 5,8, 13, 16 3 1,2,3,5,8,9, 10, 1,2,3,4,6,9, 10,
11, 14, 18, 19, 20 11, 12, 14, 17,
18, 19, 20
4 8, 19, 20 3, 10, 18 4 10, 11, 12, 16 7

10 25 20 Chattopadhay 4 1 2,4,7 2,7, 10, 15, 19, 3 1 4,5, 14, 16 7,8, 12, 15, 20, 48750 3000 11000 62750
et al. [30] 23 23
2 1,3,6 3,6,9, 12, 14, 18, 2 1,2,3,5,7,8, 10, 1,4,5, 6,9, 10, 13,
20, 21, 22, 24, 25 12, 13, 15, 16, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20
17, 18, 20
3 8,9, 11, 12, 4,5, 11, 13, 16
14, 15, 17,
18, 19
4 5, 10, 13, 1,8, 17 3 6,9, 11, 15, 16, 2,3, 11
16, 20 17, 19
 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142 133

Table 15 Table 16
TC for different number of cell groupings. Tuning of SA parameters with Ti = 4500 C and Tf = 50 C.

C TC MUC CFC ICC CF Details ITmax QR Experimental Convergence

output Point
c Xj.c Zi.c (TC/Quenching
5 51200 39300 0 11900 1 3 5 count)
2 2 6 1/2 *Cm *m*n 0.7 Fig. 18a 41800/15
3 1 2 0.8 41300/21
4 1,6 4 0.9 41000/25
5 4,5 1,3 0.95 41000/30
4 49500 39300 1500 8700 1 2,3,6 5,6 0.99 41000/24
2 1 2 Cm *m*n 0.7 Fig. 18b 41800/13
3 1 4 0.8 41000/17
4 4,5 1,3 0.9 41000/16
3 41800 39300 0 2500 1 1 5,6 0.95 41000/21
2 1,2,3,6 2,4 0.99 41000/22
3 4,5 1,3 2 *Cm *m*n 0.7 Fig. 18a 41800/3
2 41000 39300 1700 0 1 1,2,3,6 2,4,5,6 0.8 41000/9
2 1,4,5 1,3 0.9 41000/10
0.95 41000/11
0.99 41000/7

cated randomly and with uniform distribution respectively and the

demand of the parts is generated with uniform distribution.
Table 17
Due to randomness inherent of any meta-heuristic, the optimal Experimental settings and observations SGA parameter tuning.
solution to each problem is evaluated as the best of the 10 runs.
Pc Pm Experimental output Convergence
Table 14 compares the operational costs, evaluated using TC (i.e.
point
Eq. (1)) in terms of design decisions found in the literature source (TC/Generation
and the proposed model decisions. It reveals that the decisions of number)
the proposed CMS model are better than the decisions presented 0.8 0.05 Fig. 19a 43000/58
in the source data with respect to operational costs. However, it 0.10 43717/52
should not be considered that the other models are inferior since 0.15 44100/66
they are modeled for different objectives. The purpose of compari- 0.9 0.05 Fig. 19b 42800/45
son with older data set is to afrm the solution would be different 0.10 43300/42
when operational costs are integrated and the operational costs 0.15 43717/54
would be higher when the design decisions are evolved with other 0.95 0.05 Fig. 19c 41000/35
objectives. The results also reveal that the proposed model is able 0.10 41300/39
to evolve a better part-machine grouping with minimized operat- 0.15 42800/42
ing cost when compared to literature part-machine grouping. This
cost optimization is possible as the proposed model involves inte-
grated approach considering number of cells C as a decision variable (ii) Effect of the proposed selection operator by comparing the
instead of working on pre-determined C. And also, consideration of population mean tness and computational time of two AGGA
scheduling associated with machine duplications and cross-ow variants: AGGA with proposed selection operator and with-
has enabled the model to nd a superior solution. out adaptive parameters, denoted as AGGA 1 and AGGA
with proportionate selection and without adaptive parame-
5.2. Effect of number of cells (C) ters, addressed here as AGGA 2 ;
(iii) Effect of the inclusion of adaptive parameters by comparing
For studying the effect of optimizing C, the illustrative problem the population mean tness and computational time of AGGA
shown in the previous section is worked by xing the number of with AGGA 1.
cells as 2, 3, 4, and 5. Table 15 shows cost parameters and CF details (iv) Effect of crossover operator by comparing with other crossover
for the different cell groupings obtained using IBM ILOG CPLEX 12.6. operators.
It indicates clearly that the TC varies signicantly while xing the
number of cells as constant and consideration of C as a decision 6.1. Comparison with ILOG CPLEX solutions, SA and SGA
variable has inuence on TC and facilitate to evolve optimal CMS
design for minimum operating cost. The above study reveals that The proposed AGGA works as a simultaneous approach consid-
the consideration of C as a decision variable is valid. ering number of cell groups C as a decision variable and optimizes C
for minimized total operating cost. However, a sequential approach
6. Performance study of AGGA of relaxing mathematical formulations with xed number of cells
(i.e. neglecting constraints 6 and 7 in both formulations) and using
This section discusses the performance of the proposed AGGA number of cells C as an input instead of a decision variable is solv-
by studying its able by IBM ILOG CPLEX 12.6, and by sequentially repeating for all
possible cell congurations (i.e. C = 2 to Cm ) optimal conguration
(i) Solution quality and computational efciency when compared can be obtained and is considered for studying the performance
with the other approaches of (a) adopting sequential approach the proposed AGGA. Besides, the proposed AGGA is compared with
on linear and nonlinear mathematical formulations and solved the Simulated Annealing (SA) and Simple Genetic Algorithm (SGA)
using IBM ILOG CPLEX 12.6. and (b) simultaneous approaches heuristics to ascertain the computational capabilities of AGGA. This
of Simulated Annealing (SA) and Simple Genetic Algorithm section rst presents the program codes developed for ILOG CPLEX,
(SGA); SAA and SGA and then compares the solutions.
134 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142
6.1.1. ILOG CPLEX programs
The Constraint Programming (CP) optimizer of ILOG solver is
used to solve both non-linear and linear formulations. The CP
optimizer features an efcient constraint programming search
engine that contains powerful search methods for nding feasi-
ble solutions of constraint satisfaction problems and optimization
problems. The solutions obtained through CPLEX codes developed
using machine overlap functions of CP optimizer for nonlinear and
linear formulations, relaxed to xed number of cells, are given in
Appendix A and Appendix B respectively.
6.1.2. Simulated annealing algorithm
The string representation of SA is same as the chromosome rep-
resentation of AGGA. The perturbation mechanism of SA involves
selection of random distinct positions and regeneration of values
depending upon whether it is machine or part or cell assignments.
Fig. 17 shows the SA procedure adopted for the current study. In SA,
the parameters initial temperature (Ti ) and nal temperature (Tf )
are set based on the probability of accepting inferior solutions at
the initial stages of the algorithm and nal stages of the algorithm.
In the SA practices, the value to the Ti is set such that the probability
of accepting inferior solutions is around 0.9 so as to have diversity
in search during early stages of search and the value of Tf is set such
that the probability of accepting inferior solutions is below 0.05 to
avoid unnecessary diversication. In this paper, based on the range
of TC (i.e. tness function) values of the sample problems, they are
xed. The initial (Ti ) and nal temperatures (Tf ) are set as 4500 C
and 50 C respectively. The two other parameters of number of iter-
ations at each temperature setting (ITmax ) and quenching rate (QR )
are set based on the experimentations carried with various set-
tings using the illustrative problem discussed in section 4 and are
detailed in Table 16 and Fig. 18. The observations reveal that, QR
above 0.9 is capable of providing convergent solutions. However,
the number of quench count increases with increase in quench rate.
The number of quenching count QR of 0.95 and ITmax of Cm *m*n are
reasonable and hence they are used in this comparative study.
6.1.3. Simple genetic algorithm
The SGA is designed with the same chromosome representa-
tion and roulette wheel selection operator of the proposed AGGA.
The other two SGA parameters of Pc and Pm, which are not a part
of AGGA, are tuned by SPOT analysis (used in Section 4.2) using
the illustrative problem discussed in Section 4. Table 17 shows the
experimental settings of SGA parameter tuning. The observations
reveal that Pc = 0.95 and Pm = 0.05 are reasonable and these values
are used in this comparative study.
6.1.4. Performance comparison
Table 18 provides the comparison of solutions and computa-
tional time of simultaneous approaches of AGGA, SA and SGA, and
sequential approaches of relaxed mathematical formulations (for
the problems in Table 14). The bolded solutions indicate the opti-
mal solutions. Because of randomness of AGGA, SA and SGA, the
solutions of ten trials are given. The results indicate that AGGA is
able to nd the optimal solution and is also computationally ef-
cient than other approaches. It is also seen from the results that
AGGA SA and SGA can nd the optimal solution in more or less
same computational time for smaller size problems. However, for
larger size problems, AGGA is more efcient than SA and SGA. And
also, AGGA has more number of optimal solutions out of ten trials
(shown in bolded font in Table 18) compared to SA and SGA. This
improved performance of AGGA is due to the larger search space
of larger size problems and AGGA being based on population of
solutions can evaluate more number of feasible solutions per gen-
eration. Thus AGGA is better both in terms of solution quality and
computational efciency when compared to both CPLEX, SA and
SGA solutions.
6.2. Effect of selection operator
As the purpose of this section is to study the effect of the pro-
posed selection operator, two variants of AGGA that have the same
genetic design of AGGA, but without the adaptive evaluations are
developed and are denoted as AGGA 1 and AGGA 2. The difference
between them is the selection operator. The AGGA 2 uses propor-
tionate selection operator (i.e. roulette wheel selection) with power
law scaling for the tness function, whereas AGGA 1 uses the group
based operator coupled with the selection pressure as the selection
operator. Eq. (58) gives the power law used in AGGA 2.
New TC = TC erank/2 (58)
Where,
New TC = scaled tness function i.e. total operating cost
rank = index of the individual got by ordering in terms of tness
function
Fig. 20ac shows respectively the population mean tness,
cumulative computational time and computational time of each
generations of AGGA 1 and AGGA 2 for the illustrative problem
(shown in section 4). The AGGA 1 has a better convergence of the
population mean tness when compared to AGGA 2. This effect is
due to group based reproduction of AGGA 1 in which each group
evolves independently and thus preserves the goodness of the solu-
tions. A comparison of computational time (i.e. Fig. 20a and b)
shows that AGGA 2 is computationally better as it involves simple
selection operators and hence lesser time is spent in its generation
of mating pool.
6.3. Effect of adaptive parameters
The AGGA uses adaptive evaluations for Pc and Pm that decreases
in successive generations in order to improve the computational
time. The impact of these adaptive parameters is analyzed by com-
paring the computational time of AGGA and AGGA 1, the one that
does not have adaptive parameters. Fig. 21a shows the population
mean tness and Fig. 21b and c shows the cumulative computa-
tional time of generations and the computational time for each
generation of AGGA and AGGA 1 for the sample problem discussed
in Section 4. These gures reveal that although, AGGA and AGGA 1
has same convergence of the population mean tness, AGGA has
the advantage of better computational time benet of taking 1/5th
of time of AGGA 1. Also, Fig. 21c reveals that computational time of
AGGA reduces with successive generations as the adaptive evalua-
tions reduces the generation gap (GG) and thus allows overlapping
population leading to lesser computational time in later genera-
tions.
6.4. Effect of crossover operator
In GA, the crossover operator plays an important role in the
reproduction of individuals that make up the next generation. This
operator is expected to explore the search space of the problem
and reproduce the better part of individuals and pass it to the next
generation. This process in the due course of search will produce
the optimal or near optimal solution. The crossover operator of
AGGA is compared with the other crossover operators of single-
point, two-point and cycle crossover operators to verify and ensure
the aptness of the proposed crossover operator of AGGA. The illus-
trative problem and genetic design of AGGA discussed in section
4 are adopted for the comparison. The problem is run for 10 trials
for each crossover methods and the best is compared. Fig. 22 gives
the convergence and computational time of all the four crossover
Table 18
Solutions and computational time of AGGA, SA, SGA and ILOG CPLEX.
P. No. Sequential approach (ILOG CPLEX) Simultaneous approach Best Solution Least CT &
Best Method

Non-linear model Linear model Proposed AGGA SA SGA

C TC CT Total CT C TC CT Total CT TC of ten CT (Average) TC of ten CT (Average) TC of ten CT (Average)

Trails Trails Trails
1 2 56411 532 2877 2 56411 425 2545 T1 56411, 956 T159911, T2 1745 T1 56411, 2135 56411 956 AGGA
T2 - 56411, - 56411, T3 - T2 - 59911,
T3 - 56411, 56411, T4 - T3 - 59911,
T4 - 56411, 56411, T5 - T4 - 56411,

N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142

T5 - 59911, 56411, T6 - T5 - 56411,
T6 - 56411, 59911, T7 - T6 - 59911,
T7 - 56411, 56411, T8 T7 - 59911,
T8 - 59911, 56411, T9 - T8 - 56411,
T9 - 56411, 56411, T10 - T9 - 59911,
T10 - 56411 59911 T10 - 56411
3 57711 558 3 57711 456
4 60311 583 4 60311 523
5 67948 599 5 67948 561
6 75112 605 6 75112 580

2 2 118170 711 6172 2 118170 625 5438 T1 118170, 2965 T1- 124570, 4735 T1132490, 5263 118170 2965 AGGA
T2 - 122990, T2 - 118170, T2 - 122990,
T3 - 122990, T3 - 122990, T3- 124570,
T4 - 122990, T4 118170, T4 - 122990,
T5 - 118170, T5 - 122990, T5 - 122990,
T6 - 122990, T6 -118170, T6124570,
T7 - 118170, T7 - 118170, T7 - 118170,
T8 - 118170, T8 - 124570, T8-132490,
T9 - 118170, T9 - 122990, T9 - 124570,
T10 - 118170 T10 - 124570 T10 - 118170,
3 126070 725 3 126070 653
4 143670 744 4 143670 659
5 151270 783 5 151270 685
6 159370 796 6 159370 652
7 180816 815 7 180816 702
8 213448 776 8 213448 712
9 234887 822 9 234887 750

3 2 42259 645 3581 2 42259 523 3080 T142536, 1056 T142536, T2 1852 T143014, T2 2955 42259 1056 AGGA
T242536, 42259, T3 42259,
T343559, T4 42259, T4 T345964,
42259, 42259, T443559,
T542536, T543014, T6 T542536,
T643559, T7 42259, T643559,
42259, T8 T743014, T747794, T8
42259, T9 T843559, 42259,
42259, T10 - T942536, T945964,
42536 T10 - 42536 T10 - 42536
3 43759 701 3 43759 556
4 52737 712 4 52737 586
5 52999 750 5 52999 703
6 54661 773 6 54661 712

135
 136
Table 18 (Continued)
P. No. Sequential approach (ILOG CPLEX) Simultaneous approach Best Solution Least CT &
Best Method

Non-linear model Linear model Proposed AGGA SA SGA

C TC CT Total CT C TC CT Total CT TC of ten CT (Average) TC of ten CT (Average) TC of ten CT (Average)

Trails Trails Trails
4 2 3183390 908 6385 2 3183390 745 4560 T13191860, 1188 T13189370, 3625 T1493465, 4236 3183390 1188 AGGA
T2 T23189370, T23189370,
3183390, T3 T3 T3533500,
3183390, 3183390, T43189370,
T43191860, T43189370, T53213430,
T5 T5493465, T63189370,
3183390, T6 T73183370,
T63213430, 3183390, T83189370,

N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142

T73189370, T73189370, T93191860,
T8 T83183370, T10
3183390, T93191860, 3183390
T93189370, T103213430
T10 -
3183390
3 3246463 1224 3 3246463 912
4 3387720 1346 4 3387720 945
5 3575500 1403 5 3575500 956
6 3575560 1504 6 3575560 1002

5 2 52129 963 10006 2 52129 841 8310 T1 52129, 4105 T1 52129, 7485 T153828, 6785 52129 4105 AGGA
T253828, T3 T2 52129, T252528,
52129, T4 T352528, T353828,
52129, T453828, T452129,
T552528, T553828, T552528,
T652528, T7 T653828, T7 T653828,
52129, 52129, T752129,
T853828, T852528, T852528,
T952528, T953828, T953828,
T10 - 52129 T10 - 52129 T1053828
3 58959 1105 3 58959 892
4 62488 1206 4 62488 925
5 63470 1356 5 63470 963
6 74448 1253 6 74448 987
7 78980 1325 7 78980 1015
8 106800 1402 8 106800 1124
9 122360 139638 9 122360 1563

6 2 74120 562 4616 2 74120 452 3697 T1 74120, 3108 T1108400, 4683 T1 74120, 4362 74120 3108 AGGA
T277640, T277640, T2108400,
T377640, T4 T374120, T378640,
74120, T4- 77640, T4- 77640,
T578640, T578640, T577640,
T6108400, T674120, T678640,
T7- 77640, T8 T777640, T774120,
74120, T8108400, T877640,
T978640, T978640, T977460,
T10 - 74120 T10 - 74120 T10108400
3 115070 623 3 115070 510
4 125810 791 4 125810 650
5 126200 852 5 126200 658
6 140200 863 6 140200 695
7 140450 925 7 140450 732
Table 18 (Continued)
P. No. Sequential approach (ILOG CPLEX) Simultaneous approach Best Solution Least CT &
Best Method

Non-linear model Linear model Proposed AGGA SA SGA

C TC CT Total CT C TC CT Total CT TC of ten CT (Average) TC of ten CT (Average) TC of ten CT (Average)

Trails Trails Trails
7 2 83200 752 8766 2 83200 521 6558 T1 83200, 6241 T10 83200, 7812 T192800, 7524 83200 6241 AGGA
T1 83200, T687200, T292800,
T3- 83200, T787200, T392800,
T487200, T887200, T492800, T5
T587200, T6 T3- 87200, T4 83200,
83200, 83200, T5 T687200,
T787200, T8 83200, T1 T787200,

N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142

83200, 83200, T8- 87200, T9
T987200, T187200 83200, T10
T10 - 83200 T992800, 83200
3 83200 723 3 83200 523
4 83200 769 4 83200 569
5 86200 798 5 86200 641
6 109200 896 6 109200 653
7 98200 852 7 98200 689
8 113200 879 8 113200 652
9 133720 923 9 133720 723
10 137600 986 10 137600 745
11 143020 1188 11 143020 842

8 No solution T1102950, 9563 T1 102850, 12584 T1102950, 10763 102850 9563 AGGA
produced in T1 102850, T2 102850, T2102950,
ILOG solver T3- 102850, T3102950, T3109520,
saying search T4102950, T4- 103150, T4102950,
space T5 102850, T5103150, T5- 103150,
exceeded T6102950, T6102950, T6103150,
T7103150, T7 102850, T7 102850,
T8103150, T8102950, T8 102850,
T9 102850, T9103150, T9119580,
T10 - 102850 T10102950 T10 - 103150

9 T1 -99610, T2 16800 T1 -103600, 19526 T1 99610, 20520 99610 16800 AGGA

- 103600, T3 T2165800, T299610, T3
99610, T4 T3 - 111800, -103600, T4 -
-165800, T4 - 168500, 103600, T5 -
T5165800, T5103600, 168500,
T6 99610, T6 99610, T6111800,
T7103600, T7103600, T7165800,
T8165800, T8103600, T8103600,
T9 99610, T9 99610, T9 - 165800,
T10 - 103600 T10165800 T10103600

10 T1 62750, 48750 T171900, 45820 T171900, T2 50628 62750 48750 AGGA

T263750, T3 T271900, 62750,
62750, T4 T371900, T363750,
62750, T463750, T5 T463750,
T571900, T6 62750, T571900,
62750, T671900, T7 T671900,
T763750, 62750, T771900,
T863750, T9 T863750, T863750, T9
62750, T10 T963750, 62750, T10
- 71900 T1063750 - 63750

137
138 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142

Fig. 17. SA search process.

Fig. 18. SA parameter tuning.

operators. From Fig. 22, it can be inferred that proposed crossover
operator has better convergence and is also computationally ef-
cient than the other three crossover operators.
7. Discussions on AGGA
The AGGA features a simultaneous approach for optimizing the
number of cells (C) like Grouping Genetic Algorithm (GGA) and the
genetic decoding is adjusted according to C. The genetic coding also
incorporates machine duplications and thus overcomes the inabil-
ity of GGA to incorporate to machine duplication environments. To
improve convergence capability, AGGA uses group based selection
operator with selection pressure. In order to increase the compu-
tational efciency, the AGGA uses adaptive parameter updating for
probability of cross-over Pc and probability of mutation Pm . The
adaptive evaluations are done by generation gap (GG), Generation
Gap Factor (GGF) and Adaptive Factor (AF). The genetic parameters
of Pc , Pm and GG are initialized with higher values in initial gener-
ations to enable high exploration and exploitation of search space
and are reduced in successive generations to get the computational
time advantage without compromising the solution quality.
The quality and computational efciency of AGGA is analyzed
by comparing the solutions of the relaxed mathematical formula-
tion that considers C as an input instead of as a decision variable.
The results show that AGGA is able to nd the optimal solution
and is also computationally efcient. A comparison of AGGA with
 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142 139

Fig. 19. SGA parameter tuning.

Fig. 20. Effect of selection operator of AGGA.

the Simulated Annealing (SA) results shows that AGGA has better
computational capabilities. The AGGA features of grouping based
selection operator and adaptive evaluation of Pc and Pm are studied
by comparing the population mean tness and the computational
time of generations of AGGA with that of its two other variants
AGGA 1 and AGGA 2. The comparison of AGGA 1 and AGGA 2
reveals that AGGA 1 has better convergence than AGGA 2 as the
group based selection operator enables to preserve the goodness
of each chromosome by evolving each group independently. How-
ever, AGGA 1 is computationally weaker than AGGA 2 as the former
involves complicated selection operator. On comparing the AGGA
and AGGA 1 performances, it is found that even though both have
same convergence, AGGA is computationally better than AGGA 1.
This computational advantage is due to the adaptive evaluations
and thus time spent in creation of new population decreases with
the generations. Altogether, the AGGA performs better than both
AGGA 1 and AGGA 2 with improved convergence capability as an
effect of the proposed selection operator and better computing
capabilities due to usage of adaptive evaluations.
The proposed model and AGGA can also be applied to other clus-
tering applications such as node application software server
decisions in computer networks, customer-facility clusters in ser-
vice center, consignment loading in transportation sector and
wards facilities planning in hospitals. Table 19 lists the other appli-
cations of the proposed model and AGGA methodology.
8. Conclusion
This paper presents a model for the design of CMS integrat-
ing structural parameters of part machine grouping and number
of cells, and operational parameters of scheduling under machine
duplications and cross-ow environment. The proposed model is
a non-linear integer programming with the objective of minimiz-
ing total operating cost (TC) that comprises of machine utility cost
(MUC), cross-ow cost (CFC) and inter-cell movement cost (ICC).
This integrated design approach of CMS is a generalized structure
and on relaxing few model constraints and cost parameters, it can
be applied to variety of manufacturing system designs. The model
140 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142

Fig. 21. Effect of adaptive parameters of AGGA.

Fig. 22. Effect of crossover operator of AGGA.

Table 19
Other applications of the model and algorithm.

Application domain Description Design variables equivalence

Parts Machines Number of cells

Computer network Determination of optimal number of servers, and the User nodes Application packages Number of servers
user nodes to be connected and application packages
to be loaded in each server for maximum utilization or
speed.
Service centers Optimization of number of service centers, and the Customers Service facilities Number of service
customer groups to be dealt with, and the necessary centers
service facilities to be equipped in each service center
for maximum utilization or customer satisfaction.
Hospitals Determination of optimal number of wards and the Patients Medical devices Number of wards
categories of patients to be accommodated and
medical devices to be installed in each ward for quick
and prompt attention.
Transportation Determination of optimal number of vehicles, and set Consignments Delivery points Number of vehicles
of consignments (or goods) to be loaded and its
delivery points to each vehicle for minimum cost
 N. Jawahar, R. Subhaa / Journal of Manufacturing Systems 44 (2017) 115142
can be applied for predetermined number of cells by neglecting the
constraints that consider C as a variable and giving C as an input to
the model. Suppose the cross-ow is not permitted, its cost may
be set as very high to get optimal CMS design without cross ow.
By xing the machine utility rate as high, optimal cell formation
with no machine duplications and no cross ow can be obtained.
Further, the model can be extended for different layouts of cells by
giving the inter-cell movement cost accordingly.
The operational cost comparison shows that the proposed
model is able to evolve a better part-machine grouping, in terms
of total operating cost, when compared to literature part-machine
grouping. This cost reduction is enabled as the model incorpo-
rates an integrated approach of structural and operational design
parameters and considers number of cells C as a decision variable
instead of working on pre-determined C. Further, considerations of
machine duplications based on its utilization and cross-ow with
scheduling advantage have provided an optimal solution with min-
imized operational cost. The inclusion of C as a variable has an
impact in operating cost and optimizes C for a minimum cost.
Due to the complexities of the proposed model, a GA based
intelligent search heuristic namely Adjustable Grouping Genetic
Algorithm (AGGA) is proposed. The AGGA is a variant of Grouping
Genetic Algorithm (GGA) that is extensively used for cell forma-
tion problem that groups without pre-specied number of cells.
R3C4 The inability of GGA to address the machine duplication envi-
ronment is overcome in AGGA by adjusting its genetic coding to
enable machine duplications. The AGGA features an effective group
based selection operator that evolves based on group-wise selec-
tion pressure and thus preserve better individuals and meanwhile
provide an opportunity for poor individuals. The AGGA is also
designed with an adaptive evaluation of AGGA parameters proba-
bility of crossover (Pc ), probability of mutation (Pm ) and generation
gap (GG). The factors of generation gap factor (GGF) and adaptive
factor (AF) are used for reducing Pc , Pm and GG through genera-
tions. These factors work in analogy to quenching rate of SA where
slow cooling of annealing process leading to better microstructure
is similar to adaptive reduction of GGF and AF leading to better
convergence in a lesser computational time. A higher value of Pc ,
Pm and GG is set in initial generations making a thorough explo-
ration and exploitation of search space and are reduced leading
to overlapping individuals and hence lesser computational time.
The performance study of AGGA by comparing with relaxed model
solutions by CPLEX and by SA reveals that AGGA has better com-
putational capability for all test problems. The proposed selection
operator, crossover operator and adaptive parameters of AGGA
have better convergence and improved computational efciency
than other operators.
The solutions of the proposed methodology of AGGA are lim-
ited by the scheduling method used. The CMS model can be
enhanced further by integration of the layout considerations and
the model can be formulated to include optimizing the arrange-
ment of machines and arrangement of cells as well. The schedule
generation module incorporated in the proposed AGGA uses a pri-
ority dispatching rule based GA that can guarantee near optimal
schedule only. Some other scheduling heuristics may be attempted.
Acknowledgements
This research is supported by WOS-A Scheme (grant no.
SR/WOS-A/ET-71/2011) of Department of Science and Technology
(DST) functioning under the Ministry of Science and Technology,
India. The authors thank the Management of Thiagarajar College
of Engineering, Madurai, for the facilities provided to carry out this
research and thank DST for the nancial support. The authors thank
141
the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments which
have rened the paper in a useful way.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found,
in the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmsy.2017.04.
017.
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