An exact method for solving the manufacturing cell formation problem

作者：Elbenani Bouazza; Ferland Jacques A^*

来源：International Journal of Production Research, 2012, 50(15): 4038-4045.

DOI：10.1080/00207543.2011.588622

• cell formation problem
• linear binary programming formulation
• heuristic methods
• grouping efficiency

The cell formation problem is extensively studied in the literature, but very few authors have proposed exact methods. In this paper a linear binary programming formulation is introduced to generate a solution for the cell formation problem. To verify the behaviour of the proposed model, a set of 35 benchmark problems is solved using the branch and cut method implemented in the IBM ILOG CPLEX 10.11 Optimiser. Moreover, these results allow us to validate the quality of the solution generated with heuristic methods proposed in the literature. This experimentation indicates that, for the smaller problems, the best-known solutions are the same as those generated with CPLEX 10.11 Optimiser. These results indicate a fair confidence in the optimality of the best-known solutions generated by the heuristic methods. Furthermore, our approach is the first exact method providing results of this quality.

• 出版日期2012