HSA

Cell Formation Problem (CFP) is a famous issues in group technology, where an analyst aims at forming groups of machines/parts (so-called cells), in such a way that machines in every cell process as much as possible parts from this cell and as less as possible parts from other cells. In this article, a Harmony Search Algorithm (HSA) is designed to solve the CFP. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm, 35 sample classical problems are examined. The experimental results indicate desirable performance of the proposed algorithm. In addition, applicability of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by a real-world case in project human resource management. Since the megaprojects in oil industry require a wide range of jobs, thus grouping of individuals with considering their skills is an important challenge. The paper defines the job grouping problem as a CFP, and solve a real-world problem using the proposed HSA.