A survey of the literature on the multiple or parallel assembly line balancing problem

Computers & Industrial Engineering

2015

There are many factors which affect the performance of a complex production system. Efficiency of an assembly line is one of the most important of these factors since assembly lines are generally constructed as the last stage of an entire production system. Parallel two-sided assembly line system is a new research domain in academia though these lines have been utilised to produce large sized products such as automobiles, trucks, and buses in industry for many years. Parallel two-sided assembly lines carry practical advantages of both parallel assembly lines and two-sided assembly lines.The main purpose of this paper is to introduce type-E parallel two-sided assembly line balancing problem for the first time in the literature and to propose a new ant colony optimisation based approach for solving the problem. Different from the existing studies on parallel assembly line balancing problems in the literature, this paper aims to minimise two conflicting objectives, namely cycle time and number of workstations at the same time and proposes a mathematical model for the formal description of the problem. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study which addresses both conflicting objectives on a parallel two-sided assembly line configuration. The developed ant colony optimisation algorithm is illustrated with an example to explain its procedures. An experimental design is also conducted to calibrate the parameters of the proposed algorithm using response surface methodology. Results obtained from the performed computational study indicate that minimising cycle time as well as number of workstations help increase system efficiency. It is also observed that the proposed algorithm finds promising results for the studied cases of type-E parallel two-sided assembly line balancing problem when the results are compared with those obtained from other three well-known heuristics. AbstractThere are many factors which affect the performance of a complex production system. Efficiency of an assembly line is one of the most important of these factors since assembly lines are generally constructed as the last stage of an entire production system. Parallel two-sided assembly line system is a new research domain in academia though these lines have been utilised to produce large sized products such as automobiles, trucks, and buses in industry for many years. Parallel two-sided assembly lines carry practical advantages of both parallel assembly lines and two-sided assembly lines.The main purpose of this paper is to introduce type-E parallel two-sided assembly line balancing problem for the first time in the literature and to propose a new ant colony optimisation based approach for solving the problem. Different from the existing studies on parallel assembly line balancing problems in the literature, this paper aims to minimise two conflicting objectives, namely cycle time and number of workstations at the same time and proposes a mathematical model for the formal description of the problem. To the best of our knowledge, this...

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Section: Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Type-E parallel two-sided assembly line balancing problem: Mathematical model and ant colony optimisation based approach with optimised parameters

Computers & Industrial Engineering

2015

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“…Since then, Benzer et al (2007) proposed a new shortest path approach based model for PALBP and illustrated the performance of the model on a numerical example. Lusa (2008) presented a detailed survey on multiple or parallel assembly line balancing problems and described the main literature contributions briefly. Baykasoglu et al (2009) proposed a novel ant colony optimisation based algorithm for PALBP.…”

Section: International Journal Of Production Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simultaneous balancing and sequencing of mixed-model parallel two-sided assembly lines

International Journal of Production Research

2014

Growing interests from customers in customised products and increasing competitions among peers necessitate companies to configure their manufacturing systems more effectively than ever before. We propose a new assembly line system configuration for companies that need intelligent solutions to satisfy customised demands on time with existing resources. A mixed-model parallel two-sided assembly line system is introduced based on the parallel two-sided assembly line system previously proposed by Ozcan et al. (Balancing parallel two-sided assembly lines, International Journal of Production Research, 48 (16), 4767-4784, 2010). The mixed-model parallel two-sided assembly line balancing problem is illustrated with examples from the perspective of simultaneous balancing and sequencing. An agent based ant colony optimisation algorithm is proposed to solve the problem. This algorithm is the first attempt in the literature to solve an assembly line balancing problem with an agent based ant colony optimisation approach. The algorithm is illustrated with an example and its operational procedures and principles explained and discussed.Keywords: mixed-model parallel two-sided assembly lines; assembly line balancing; agent based ant colony optimisation; meta-heuristics; artificial intelligence

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“…developed a multiple-colony ant algorithm for balancing bi-objective parallel assembly lines while Zhang (2014a, 2014b) considered the model sequencing problem as well as the line balancing problem on mixed-model parallel two-sided assembly lines and proposed agent based ant colony optimisation solution approaches. Please refer to Lusa (2008) and Zhang and Final version available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2014.994685 for a detailed survey on multiple and parallel assembly line balancing problems.…”

Section: Etc)mentioning

confidence: 99%

A mathematical model and genetic algorithm-based approach for parallel two-sided assembly line balancing problem

Production Planning & Control

2015