A goal programming embedded genetic algorithm for multi-objective manufacturing cell design

Abstract

In this paper, a multi-objective manufacturing cell design problem is studied. A goal programming (GP) embedded real-coded genetic algorithm (GA) is designed for solving this problem. Initially, the GA is used to obtain the individual minimum of each objective. Thereafter, utilising the concepts of GP, an equivalent problem is derived, and the sum of deviation variables associated with the objectives are minimised. The GA is used further to obtain the optimal cell design. A software toolkit is developed based on the proposed technique using C Sharp.net to ensure its use in a larger scale. The effectiveness of the technique is judged based on a set of test problems of different sizes. The proposed technique is found to be better in terms of the performance measure over the existing ones.