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Metaheuristics for a Flexible Assembly System Design Problem

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Abstract

Flexibility has become an important priority in the formulation and implementation of manufacturing strategies. This in turn has opened up a new class of design problems for such systems. Flexible assembly systems (FAS), consisting of a variety of processors and operations, provide the opportunity for improving product manufacturing flexibility, hence gaining competitive advantages. This paper considers a particular design decision problem for FAS. A matrix-based, polynomial-time lower bound algorithm is presented. Simulated annealing and tabu search metaheuristics are formulated to address the problems. Computational experience with these metaheuristics is reported.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, 24061-0118

    Sheldon H. Jacobson & Kelly A. Sullivan

  2. Graduate School of Systems and Logistics, Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, OH, 45433-7765

    Alan W. Johnson

  3. Department of Engineering Management, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, 23529-0248

    Mark A. Fleischer

  4. Seidman School of Business, Grand Valley State University, 510 Eberhard Center, Grand Rapids, MI, 49504

    Ashok Kumar

Authors
  1. Sheldon H. Jacobson
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  2. Alan W. Johnson
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  3. Kelly A. Sullivan
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  4. Mark A. Fleischer
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  5. Ashok Kumar
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Jacobson, S.H., Johnson, A.W., Sullivan, K.A. et al. Metaheuristics for a Flexible Assembly System Design Problem. Journal of Heuristics 3, 139–159 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009679413948

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009679413948

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