Study On The Cell Formation Problem Based On The Learning-forgetting Curve In The Multi-cycle Human Machine System

Cellular manufacturing system (CMS), for its advantages of both the economic-friendly of the mass production and the flexibility of the customize production, has now widely concerned by the researchers and the enterprises. As the key step of the designing of the CMS, cell formation(CF)problem becomes the focus of people’s attention. This paper discussed the technologies of the CF and the theory of the learning-forgetting curve, considering the effect of the human factor, then forming the mathematical model which based on the learning-forgetting curve in the multi-cycle human-machine system.The paper including the following parts:First, put the learning-forgetting effect into the consideration of the CF problem, forming the mathematical model in the multi-cycle environment. And make the material handing time between the inter-cell, the loading deviation and the total preparing time of the machine operator as the function of the model, then we used a numerical example to verify the effectiveness of the model.Second, we used the genetic algorithm(GA) and its designing steps to solve the model, and got the optimal unit and the relating human resource assignment. In the designing of the GA, we chose roulette wheel selection and elite reserves selection to select the chromosome, and we selected the associated variation and the penalty function to deal with the worker information which may generate feasible solution.Third, utilizing the history data of the enterprise, we forming the table of the learning rate and the demands of the parts in several cycles, considering the mathematical model which based on the learning-curve in the multi-cycle environment, using GA to get the optimal solution of the cell dividing.