“…Throughout the remainder of this paper, we focus on a particular objective criterion known as the grouping efficacy index (GEI: Kumar & Chandrasekharan, 1990). The GEI is arguably one of the most popular indices used in the cell formation literature (Brusco, 2015;Brusco & Steinley, 2007;Bychkov, Batsyn, & Pardalos, 2014;James, Brown, & Keeling, 2007;Li, Baki, & Aneja, 2010;Noktehdan, Karimi, & Kashan, 2010;Paydar & Saidi-Mehrabad, 2013;Tariq, Hussain, & Ghafoor, 2009;Tunnukij & Hicks, 2009;Wu, Chang, & Chung, 2008, Wu, Chung, & Chang, 2010.…”