An Ant-based Clustering Algorithm for Manufacturing Cell Design

• Main Authors: Shih-cheng Fu, 傅士誠
• Other Authors: none
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/46867219943824420710

碩士 === 大同大學 === 資訊經營學系(所) === 92 === Cellular Manufacturing is one of the major applications of group technology. It requires an effective part clustering approach to execute preliminary manufacturing cell design. One of famous approaches is the cluster analysis method, which uses similarity coefficients and clustering methods to group similarity parts into part families. Clustering methods are divided into two categories: hierarchical and nonhierarchical methods. Hierarchical methods often suffer from chaining effects, while nonhierarchical methods need a predetermined cluster number. The research proposes a part clustering algorithm that is based on an artificial ant clustering model. The algorithm utilizes the characteristics of ants, congregation and randomness, to prevent grouping results from being fixed during clustering processes and to reduce the effects of noisy data. Besides, the algorithm has the ability of self-organization to form high homogeneous part families naturally. The algorithm has been developed to an ant-based part clustering software system (APCS). Fifteen literature problems were selected to test the proposed algorithm with respect to group efficancy. We found that the algorithm is able to obtain better machine cell configurations. A comparative study was also conducted to compare the algorithm with seven conventional clustering methods, and the results showed that the algorithm appears to outperform most of conventional methods.