Designing a virtual cellular manufacturing system with route selection and workers' considerations: A multi-objective robust possibilistic model.

In today's economy, the necessity for responsiveness to variations in customers' permanent requirements is increasing significantly. Achieving immediate response or success in the competitive market requires boosting flexibility, agility, and efficiency in utilizing available production equipment and workforce. Implementing a Virtual Cellular Manufacturing System (VCSM) prevents the reconfiguration costs and is suitable for many systems where the machines are not removable. Owing to the significant role of human resources in VCMS, this paper assigns the workers based on their skills, interest in cooperation, and workload balancing among cells. The considerable novelty is balancing physical and time workloads simultaneously. Another strength of this research is the consideration of various routes to process each part. A comprehensive linear multi-objective mathematical model is developed for a virtual cellular manufacturing system. This paper develops the model by stating social and technical dimensions, which minimize exceptional elements and voids, maximize the workers' interest in cooperation, and minimize workload deviation. Stemming from uncertain parameters, a robust possibilistic approach is addressed. Due to the multi-objective model, the multi-choice meta-goal programming with the utility function is applied. Afterward, a real-case study is presented to validate the model. Eventually, the outcomes and sensitivity analysis are brought up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]