A Harmony Search Algorithm to Solve the Manufacturing Cell Design Problem

This paper focuses on modeling and solving the Manufacturing Cell Design Problem (MCDP) by using the Harmony Search (HS) metaheuristic. The MDCP consists on grouping machines and parts that they process, into groups called cells. So, the idea is to identify an organization of cells such that the number of times that a piece is transported between these cells is minimized. To this end, we use the HS optimization algorithm, which is based on the process of improvisation performed by musicians to find a perfect musical harmony. The experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach which is able to reach all global optimums for a set of 90 well-known MDCP instances.