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Studying unbalanced workload and buffer allocation of production systems using multi-objective optimisation

delete2017-08-09
delete12
PRE
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A
Amos H.C. Ng *
S
Sabry Shaaban
J
Jacob Bernedixen
DOI:10.1080/00207543.2017.1362121delete
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Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
Numerous studies have investigated the effects of unbalanced service times and inter-station buffer sizes on the efficiency of discrete part, unpaced production lines. There are two main disadvantages of many of these studies: (1) only some predetermined degree of imbalance and patterns of imbalance have been evaluated against the perfectly balanced configuration, making it hard to form a general conclusion on these factors; (2) only a single objective has been set as the target, which neglects the fact that different patterns of imbalance may outperform with respect to different performance measures. Therefore, the aim of this study is to introduce a new approach to investigate the performance of unpaced production lines by using multiple-objective optimisation. It has been found by equipping multi-objective optimisation with an efficient, equality constraints handling technique, both the optimal pattern and degree of imbalance, as well as the optimal relationship among these factors and the performance measures of a production system can be sought and analysed with some single optimisation runs. The results have illustrated that some very interesting relationships among the key performance measures studied, including system throughput, work-in-process and average buffer level, could only be observed within a truly multi-objective optimisation context. While these results may not be generalised to apply to any production lines, the genericity of the proposed simulation-based approach is believed to be applicable to study any real-world, complex production lines.
Keywords:
design of production systems
simulation optimisation
evolutionary algorithms
manufacturing systems engineering & multi-objective optimisation
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Journal

International Journal of Production Research cover
International Journal of Production Research
IF:
7.3
Papers:
1.1W
Citations:
3.7W

Organization

U
University of Skovde
Scholars:
612
Papers: 653
Citations: 793