I. Mahdavi - Department of Industrial Engineering, Mazandaran University of Science and Technology, Babol, Iran
B. Bootaki - Department of Industrial Engineering, Mazandaran University of Science and Technology, Babol, Iran
M.M. Paydar - School of Industrial Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran

Generally, human resources play an important role in manufacturing systems as they can affect the work environment. One of the most important factors impressing on worker performance is there being an interactional interest between workers in workshops. In this paper, we deal with this new concept in cellular manufacturing systems (CMS). Besides the existence of interactional interest, workers could be able to work with machines in their cells. In an ideal situation, all workers could be able to work with all machines in their cells, while there would be an interactional interest between each pair of them in the cells. Two matrices named Task matrix and Interest matrix are used to model the proposed problem. By minimizing the voids of these two matrices in a diagonal form simultaneously, we seek the ideal situation above. Because of nonhemogeneus matrices, a bi-objective mathematical model is developed. The ε-constraint method is applied as an optimization tool to solve the bi-objective model. Finally some numerical examples are solved to exhibit the capability of the presented problem.

Cellular manufacturing; Product mix variation; Worker interest; Bi-objective programing; ε-constraint method