A comparison of existing grouping efficiency measures and a new weighted grouping efficiency measure

Grouping efficiency is an evaluative measure of the machine-part groups in cellular manufacturing systems. This paper presents briefly both a critical review and a comparative study of different measures of grouping efficiency. Special emphasis is given to the evaluation of the goodness of clustering solutions in the block-diagonalization of the machine-part incidence matrix. The measures are reported both descriptively and quantitatively. In order to provide information on the measures, results are collected and compiled from discretely reported sources. An attempt is made to categorize and generalize these measures in order to use them for goodness of clustering solution. In order to overcome a number of drawbacks in the previously known measures, a new weighted measure is presented and its performance is demonstrated through several perspectives of evaluation of efficiency measures.