Analysis of the type II robotic mixed-model assembly line balancing problem. Issue 6 (3rd June 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Çil, Zeynel Abidin; Mete, Süleyman; Ağpak, Kürşad
• Is Part Of: Engineering optimization. Volume 49:Issue 6(2017)
• Page Start: 990
• Page End: 1009
• Publication Date: 2017-06-03
• Subjects: Mixed-model -- beam search -- heuristic -- robot -- assembly line balancing; Engineering design -- Periodicals; Mathematical optimization -- Periodicals; 620.0042
• DOI: 10.1080/0305215X.2016.1230208
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0305-215X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In recent years, there has been an increasing trend towards using robots in production systems. Robots are used in different areas such as packaging, transportation, loading/unloading and especially assembly lines. One important step in taking advantage of robots on the assembly line is considering them while balancing the line. On the other hand, market conditions have increased the importance of mixed-model assembly lines. Therefore, in this article, the robotic mixed-model assembly line balancing problem is studied. The aim of this study is to develop a new efficient heuristic algorithm based on beam search in order to minimize the sum of cycle times over all models. In addition, mathematical models of the problem are presented for comparison. The proposed heuristic is tested on benchmark problems and compared with the optimal solutions. The results show that the algorithm is very competitive and is a promising tool for further research.