Set-partitioning-based heuristic for balancing and configuration of automated flexible machining line
针对自动化柔性加工线的平衡问题，提出混合整数规划模型和基于集合划分的启发式方法，以最小化周期时间，并通过基准实例验证其优于精确算法和随机搜索。
Flexible machining lines are used in a wide range of industries due to their ability of reconfiguration to meet high variety of customer demands. A novel problem is proposed in the current research to consider automated flexible machining line (AFML) with automated machining using computer numerical control machines and automated auxiliary operations using robots. A mixed-integer programming model for the current novel problem is developed. Moreover, a novel method named set-partitioning-based heuristic (SPH) is proposed to solve this new flexible machining line balancing problem to minimise the cycle time of the line and the performance is compared with both exact algorithm and random search algorithm. A set of benchmark instances based on different size of problems against different system parameters is made. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis of the system parameter in AFML is performed to know, how the number of machines and processing time can influence the cycle time and the utilisation of AFML. Computational experiments are performed to show the performance of the proposed method SPH against other methods and the results indicate that SPH performs best among all test methods in terms of solution quality and computation on both the proposed benchmark instances.