A new split-based hybrid metaheuristic for the reconfigurable transfer line balancing problem

Abstract

We consider the Reconfigurable Transfer Line Balancing Problem. This problem consists of allocating a set of operations (necessary to machine a single part) to different workstations placed into a serial line. Each workstation can contain multiple machines operating in parallel. The machines considered are mono-spindle head CNC machines which may imply sequence-dependent setup times between operations in order to perform tool changes. Therefore, the operations allocated to a workstation should be sequenced. Besides, accessibility, inclusion, exclusion and precedence constraints between operations are considered. In this article, we propose a polynomial exact algorithm that balances the transfer line provided the overall sequence of the operations (called ‘giant sequence’) is given. We use this algorithm to solve the balancing problem when the overall sequence of operations is not fixed by embedding it in a metaheuristic framework. We perform experimentation on literature instances. The results obtained show the effectiveness of the proposed approach compared to literature.

Keywords:

• split algorithm
• metaheuristic
• balancing
• transfer line
• setup time
• polynomial algorithm
• sequencing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 ${\text{𝟙}}_X\left(a\right)$ is the indicator function, equals 1 if $a\in X$ and 0 otherwise.

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge the support received from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche of the French government through the program ‘Investissements d Avenir’ (16-IDEX-0001 CAP 20-25).