MEMETIC ALGORITHM: A NEW HEURISTIC TO AID A GENETIC ALGORITHM IN THE OPTIMIZATION OF ASSEMBLY LINE BALANCING PROBLEMS

Abstract

This article focuses on the application of a procedure based on a Memetic Algorithm with a new heuristic to aid Genetic Algorithms solve Simple Assembly Line Balancing Problems and Time and Space Assembly Balancing Problems. Standard Genetic Algorithms experience difficulties when finding optimal solutions in Time and Space Assembly Balancing Problems, however, the new heuristic presented in this paper creates a Memetic Algorithm to solve the problem faster and produce better solutions. The proposed Memetic Algorithm with the new Compacting Workstation Heuristic has been successfully used to solve Simple Assembly Line Balancing Problems, Time and Space Assembly Balancing Problems, multiobjective Time and Space Balancing Problems and other Assembly Line Balancing Problems. After an introduction to Assembly Line Balancing Problems, Genetic Algorithms, Heuristics and Memetic Algorithms, the methodology to solve these problems is described. Then, examples are presented and the results obtained, the parameters used and the new Compacting Workstation Heuristic are fully described in this paper. New optimal solutions for these problems are presented. Finally, conclusions and further investigations are described. The main conclusion is that the Memetic Algorithm created with the new heuristic presented in this paper will be useful to solve different kind of problems, instead of using different methods for each problem and it can obtain better and optimal solutions for future problems, including real world problems and multiobjective problems.