Cellular manufacturing systems design using Tabu search

Abstract: Several techniques have appeared in the literature for the cell formation problem. However, most of these heuristics have the disadvantages that they cannot solve real-life problems typical of manufacturing ®rms in reasonable computational time, and deal with the part family formation and cell grouping problems separately. The Tabu search meta-heuristic is presented for resolving these problems. The minimization of intercellular movements as an objective function is demonstrated, although minimization of cell load variation and the multiobjective function option exist in the procedure developed. The results discussed for some problems taken from the literature show that the Tabu search is a promising technique for solving the cellular manufacturing systems design problem for both medium and large problem instances

Crystalline Order On Riemannian Manifolds With Variable Gaussian Curvature And Boundary

We investigate the zero temperature structure of a crystalline monolayer constrained to lie on a two-dimensional Riemannian manifold with variable Gaussian curvature and boundary. A full analytical treatment is presented for the case of a paraboloid of revolution. Using the geometrical theory of topological defects in a continuum elastic background we find that the presence of a variable Gaussian curvature, combined with the additional constraint of a boundary, gives rise to a rich variety of phenomena beyond that known for spherical crystals. We also provide a numerical analysis of a system of classical particles interacting via a Coulomb potential on the surface of a paraboloid.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figure