Design of a scatter search method for a novel multi-criteria group scheduling problem in a cellular manufacturing system

This paper considers a group scheduling problem for manufacturing cells, in which parts may visit different cells. By addressing intra-cell scheduling, the sequence of parts within manufacturing cells is determined; however, in inter-cell scheduling the sequence of cells is obtained. We present a new mathematical model for a multi-criteria group scheduling problem in a cellular manufacture system (CMS). The main objective is to minimize the makespan, intracellular movement, tardiness, and sequence-dependent setup costs, simultaneously. Due the complexity to solve this problem, we develop a meta-heuristic algorithm based on scatter search (SS). This algorithm is evaluated and the related results confirm the efficiency and the effectiveness of our proposed SS to provide good solutions, especially for medium and large-sized problems. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.