Production scheduling for virtual cellular manufacturing systems with workforce constraints using a hybrid algorithm

As an innovative manufacturing concept, virtual cellular manufacturing (VCM) has attracted great attention in recent years. In virtual cellular manufacturing systems (VCMSs), the parts that undergo similar manufacturing operations are grouped together to form a part family and the work stations that produce those parts are grouped to form a manufacturing cell. In particular, the virtual manufacturing cell is not identified as a fixed physical grouping of the work stations, but as a flexible functional layout of the work stations. To tackle the challenge of generating an effective virtual cell formation and production schedule for the parts, this paper presents a new methodology. The proposed methodology consists of a new mathematical model, which aims to minimize the total manufacturing cost with workforce constraints, and a hybrid algorithm based on the technique of constraint programming (CP) and discrete particle swarm optimization (DPSO) for solving the problem. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology is demonstrated by an extensive computation experiments on a set of randomly generated problems that reflect real life characteristics.