Multi-objective cell configuration considering part quality and machine compatibility

We formulate the generalized group technology concept in cellular manufacturing under two new assumptions. Each process routing is indexed by a level of quality and each pair of machines is indexed by a level of compatibility. The quality of parts depends on their processing. The compatibility between machines corresponds to their ability to work together. Three objective functions are designed. They are minimizing exceptional elements, maximizing total quality of parts, and maximizing total compatibility between machines. A genetic algorithm (GA) embedded simple augmented ε-constraint (SAEC) is proposed. Computational experiments are performed on the GA-embedded SAEC, the SAEC, and a nondominated sorting GA. We compare the trade-off solutions produced by the three techniques. Due to the similarity in structure, we also make a direct comparison between the GA-embedded SAEC and the SAEC in terms of the quality of the most preferred solutions obtained. The results indicate that the hybrid approach performs satisfactorily within reasonable computation time.