Gravitational Search Algorithm Applied to the Cell Formation Problem

Group technology is a concept that emerged in the manufacturing field almost seventy years ago. Since then, group technology has been widely applied by means of a cellular manufacturing philosophy application called the cell formation problem. In this paper, we focus on adapting the discrete gravitational search algorithm to the cell formation problem. The mathematical model and the discrete gravitational search algorithm stages are detailed thereafter. To evaluate the algorithm’s performance, thirty-five tests were carried out on widely used benchmarks. The results obtained were satisfactory to confirm successful adaptation of the gravitational search algorithm. Indeed, the algorithm reached thirty best values of benchmarks obtained by previous algorithms. The algorithm also outperformed the best-known solution of one benchmark.