Purpose

The increasing energy shortage leads to worldwide attentions. This paper aims to develop a mathematical model and optimization algorithm to solve the energy-oriented U-shaped assembly line balancing problem. Different from most existing works, the energy consumption is set as a major objective.

Design/methodology/approach

An improved flower pollination algorithm (IFPA) is designed to solve the problem. The random key encoding mechanism is used to map the continuous algorithm into discrete problem. The pollination rules are modified to enhance the information exchange between individuals. Variable neighborhood search (VNS) is used to improve the algorithm performance.

Findings

The experimental results show that the two objectives are in conflict with each other. The proposed methodology can help manager obtain the counterbalance between them, for the larger size balancing problems, and the reduction in objectives is even more significant. Besides, the experiment results also show the high efficiency of the proposed IFPA and VNS.

Originality/value

The main contributions of this work are twofold. First, a mathematical model for the U-shaped assembly line balancing problem is developed and the model is dual foci including minimized SI and energy consumption. Second, an IFPA is proposed to solve the problem.

中文翻译：

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一种考虑能量问题解决II型U形装配线平衡问题的改进花授粉算法

目的

日益严重的能源短缺引起了全世界的关注。本文旨在开发一种数学模型和优化算法，以解决能源导向的U型装配线平衡问题。与大多数现有工程不同，能耗是主要目标。

设计/方法/方法

设计了一种改进的花授粉算法（IFPA）来解决该问题。随机密钥编码机制用于将连续算法映射为离散问题。修改授粉规则以增强个人之间的信息交换。可变邻域搜索（VNS）用于提高算法性能。

发现

实验结果表明，这两个目标是相互冲突的。对于较大规模的平衡问题，所提出的方法可以帮助管理者获得两者之间的平衡，目标的减少甚至更加重要。此外，实验结果还表明所提出的IFPA和VNS具有很高的效率。

创意/价值

这项工作的主要贡献是双重的。首先，针对U形装配线平衡问题建立了数学模型，并且该模型是双重焦点，包括最小化的SI和能耗。其次，提出了IFPA以解决该问题。