A new approach for rebalancing of U-lines with stochastic task times using ant colony optimisation algorithm |
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Authors: | Erkan Celik Yakup Kara Yakup Atasagun |
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Affiliation: | 1. Mechanical Faculty, Department of Industrial Engineering, Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Turkeyerkcelik@yildiz.edu.tr;3. Faculty of Engineering, Department of Industrial Engineering, Selcuk University, Konya, Turkey |
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Abstract: | In real world, line balancing involves existing lines in existing factories and the line typically needs to be rebalanced rather than balanced. Rebalancing of a U-line can be defined as a changeover process from its initial configuration to a new configuration for a while due to the reasons such as demand variations, changes in product design and changes in task times, etc. This study defines U-line rebalancing problem with stochastic task times and proposes a solution procedure based on ant colony optimisation. The objective of the proposed algorithm is to minimise total cost of rebalancing which is the sum of task transposition costs, workstation opening/closing costs and operating costs of workstations for a particular planning horizon. A comprehensive experiment is conducted to generate problem instances and to compare rebalancing costs of U-lines by means of several factors. A total of 6600 rebalancing solutions are obtained and several comparisons are performed. |
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Keywords: | U-lines rebalancing ant colony optimisation algorithm stochastic task times |
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