A Fuzzy Based Heuristic Approach to Solve Cell Formation Problems

Abstract

A fuzzy based heuristic approach is proposed to solve multi-objective cell formation problems.  This approach consists of a real coded genetic algorithm and fuzzy logic. The proposed technique is applied in two successive stages. Firstly, the minimum and maximum value of each objective is determined by using a single objective genetic algorithm. In the second stage, fuzzy logic concept is incorporated to calculate the degree of membership for individual objective. The final objective is constructed as the maximization of sum of membership function of corresponding objectives.  The overall concept is implemented by developing GUI based software using C Sharp.net programming language. A set of benchmarked problems with different sizes are considered to verify the performance of this approach. The proposed technique proves its superiority in terms of the performance measure (grouping efficacy) with minimum voids and exceptional elements over the existing techniques.