Applying Scatter Search Algorithm Based on TOPSIS to Multi-Objective Cellular Manufacturing System Design

This paper presents a multi-objective cell formation problem considering alternative process routes and machine utilization. Three conflicting objectives, namely 1) minimizing the total cost consisting inter-cell movements, procurement, operation and maintenance; 2) maximizing the total machine utilization in the manufacturing system; 3) minimizing the deviation levels between the cell utilization (i.e., balancing the workload between cells) are considered. Since this problem is NP-hardness, a multi-objective scatter search (MOSS) method based on TOPSIS is designed in order to find locally Paretooptimal frontier. To demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed MOSS, a number of test problems are solved and the related results are compared with the well-known multi-objective genetic algorithm, called NSGA-II, based on some quality measures. The computational results indicate the superiority of the proposed MOSS compared to the foregoing NSGA-II.