Simultaneous Hierarchical Clustering for Cell Formation Problems with Production Information

The purpose of this paper is to advance the similarity coefficient method to solve cell formation (CF) problems in two aspects. Firstly, while numerous similarity coefficients have been proposed to incorporate different production factors in literature, a weighted sum formulation is applied to aggregate them into a nonbinary matrix to indicate the dependency strength among machines and parts. This practice allows flexible incorporation of multiple production factors in the resolution of CF problems. Secondly, a two-mode similarity coefficient is applied to simultaneously form machine groups and part families based on the classical framework of hierarchical clustering. This practice not only eliminates the sequential process of grouping machines (or parts) first and then assigning parts (or machines), but also improves the quality of solutions. The proposed clustering method has been tested through twelve literature examples. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can at least yield solutions comparable to the solutions obtained by metaheuristics. It can yield better results in some instances, as well.