Meta-heuristics that attempt to obtain (near) global optimal solutions of NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems generally require diversification to escape from local optimality. One way to achieve diversification is to utilize the multi-start hill climbing strategy. By combining the...

The broad applications of cellular manufacturing make the cell formation problem (CFP) a core subject in the field of manufacturing. Due to the combinatorial nature of the CFP, a simulated annealing-based meta-heuristic with variable neighbourhood was developed to form part-machine cells. To...