A Hybrid Genetic Algorithm for the Simple Assembly Line Balancing Problem with a Fixed Number of Workstations

Eduardo Álvarez-Miranda, Jordi Pereira, Harold Torrez-Meruvia and Mariona Vilà
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Eduardo Álvarez-Miranda: School of Economics and Business, Universidad de Talca, Talca 3460000, Chile
Jordi Pereira: Faculty of Engineering and Sciences, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Av. Padre Hurtado 750, Viña del Mar 2520000, Chile
Harold Torrez-Meruvia: EAE Business School, C. Aragó 55, 08015 Barcelona, Spain
Mariona Vilà: EAE Business School, C. Aragó 55, 08015 Barcelona, Spain

Mathematics, 2021, vol. 9, issue 17, 1-19

Abstract: The assembly line balancing problem is a classical optimisation problem whose objective is to assign each production task to one of the stations on the assembly line so that the total efficiency of the line is maximized. This study proposes a novel hybrid method to solve the simple version of the problem in which the number of stations is fixed, a problem known as SALBP-2. The hybrid differs from previous approaches by encoding individuals of a genetic algorithm as instances of a modified problem that contains only a subset of the solutions to the original formulation. These individuals are decoded to feasible solutions of the original problem during fitness evaluation in which the resolution of the modified problem is conducted using a dynamic programming based approach that uses new bounds to reduce its state space. Computational experiments show the efficiency of the method as it is able to obtain several new best-known solutions for some of the benchmark instances used in the literature for comparison purposes.

Keywords: assembly lines; manufacturing; line balancing; hybrid genetic algorithm (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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