Abstract
The crux problem of group technology (GT) is the identification of part families requiring similar manufacturing processes and the rearrangement of machines to minimize the number of parts that visit more than one machine cell. This paper presents an improved method for part family formation, machine cell identification, bottleneck machine detection and the natural cluster generation using a self-organizing neural network. In addition, the generalization ability of the neural network makes it possible to assign the new parts to the existing machine cells without repeating the entire computational process. A computer program is developed to illustrate the effectiveness of this heuristic method by comparing it with the optimal technique for large-scale problems.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 325-332 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing |
Volume | 3 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1992 Oct |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Group technology
- cellular manufacturing system
- cluster analysis
- generalization
- neural network
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Software
- Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
- Artificial Intelligence