Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2006) 28: 337–341
DOI 10.1007/s00170-004-2373-3
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
A. Noorul Haq · J. Jayaprakash · K. Rengarajan
A hybrid genetic algorithm approach to mixed-model assembly line balancing
Received: 4 May 2004 / Accepted: 9 August 2004 / Published online: 20 April 2005
 Springer-Verlag London Limited 2005
Abstract Assembly line balancing has been a focus of interest to academics in operation management for the last four
decades. Mass production has saved huge costs for manufacturers in various industries for some time. With the growing
trend of greater product variability and shorter life cycles, traditional mass production is being replaced in assembly lines. The
current market is intensely competitive and consumer-centric.
Mixed-model assembly lines are increasing in many industrial
environments. This study deals with mixed-model assembly line
balancing for n models, and uses a classical genetic algorithm
approach to minimize the number of workstations. We also incorporated a hybrid genetic algorithm approach that used the
solution from the modified ranked positional method for the
initial solution to reduce the search space within the global
space, thereby reducing search time. Several examples illustrate the approach. The software used for programming is C++
language.
Keywords Genetic algorithm · Hybrid algorithm · Mixedmodel assembly line balancing
1 Introduction
An assembly line is a set of sequential workstations linked by
a material handling system. In each workstation, a set of tasks
are performed using a predefined assembly process in which
the following issues are defined: (a) task time, the time required to perform each task; and (b) a set of precedence relationships, which determines the sequence of the tasks. The
A. Noorul Haq (!) · K. Rengarajan
Department of Production Engineering,
National Institute of Technology,
Tiruchirapalli-620 015, India
E-mail: [email protected]
J. Jayaprakash
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Pachari Sri Nallathankal Amman (PSNA)
College of Engineering and Technology,
Dindigul-624 622, India
current market is intensely competitive and consumer-centric.
For example, in the automobile industry, most of the models
have a number of features, and the customer can choose a model
based on their desires and financial capability Different features
mean that different, additional parts must be added on the basic model. Due to high cost to build and maintain an assembly line, the manufacturers produce one model with different
features or several models on a single assembly line. Under
these circumstances, the mixed-model assembly line balancing
problem arises to smooth the production and decrease the cost.
Since the demands for different models and for features vary
on a daily basis, the problem should be solved everyday in
industry.
Formally, a mixed-model assembly line balancing problem
can be stated as follows: given n models, the set of tasks associated with each model, the performance times of the tasks,
and the set of precedence relations which specify the permissible orderings of the tasks for each model, the problem is to
assign the tasks to an ordered sequence of stations such that
precedence relations of each model are satisfied and some performance measures are optimized. Unlike the case of a single
model line, different models of a product are assembled on
a mixed-model assembly line. The models are launched to the
line one after another. Two types of assembly line balancing
problems are:
1. Type-I problems, where the required production rate (i.e.
cycle time), assembly tasks, tasks times, and precedence requirements will be given and the objective is to minimize the
number of workstations; and
2. Type-II problems, where the number of workstations or production employees is fixed and the objective is to minimize
the cycle time and maximize the production rate. These types
of balancing problems are generally occur when the organization wants to produce the optimum number of items using
a fixed number of workstations without purchasing new machines or expanding its facilities. This study is mainly focused on the Type-I problem, which aims to minimize the
number of workstations.
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2 Literature review
The mixed-model with deterministic assembly line balancing
model is very applicable in “just in time” manufacturing environments because attempts have been made to find sequences
resulting in minimal WIP levels. Helgeson and Birnie [1] solved
the assembly line balancing problem using a ranked positional
weight technique. Kabir and Tabucanon [2] solved the batchmodel assembly line (two or more products) problem using
a multi-attribute-based approach. Monden [3] was concerned
with the sequencing of assembly lines such that the stability
of parts usage rates would be addressed. Miltenburg [4] presented a heuristic approach to both measure the stability of parts
usage rates and to minimize the “lumpiness” of raw material
usage. Erel and Gokcen [5] used shortest-route formulation to
minimize the task time for different models while also considering precedence constraints. Erel and Gokcen [6] developed
a binary integer formulation for the mixed-model assembly line
balancing problem. In another work, Erel and Gocken developed
a goal programming approach [7] in which they used a combined precedence diagram, which had been previously developed
by Thomopoulos [8]. A two-stage heuristic method for balancing mixed-model assembly lines was developed by Vilarinho and
Simaria [9].
The application of genetic algorithms (GA) for assembly line
balancing has been widely studied so for. Anderson and Ferris [10] proposed a genetic algorithm for Type-II problems, and
Leu, Matheson and Rees [11] presented a GA-based approach
to solve Type-I problems with multiple objectives. A genetic algorithm for work load smoothing was presented by Kim, Kim
and Kim [12]. Chen, Lu and Yu [13] developed a hybrid genetic
algorithm approach to the assembly line planning problem.
All these studies are different from this work not only in
terms of the problem considered, but also in terms of the hybrid
approach. This study presents a hybrid GA approach to solve the
mixed model assembly line balancing problem. Initially, a wellknown heuristic method is used to generate a feasible solution.
This solution is then included into the randomly-derived population of an evolving pool of GA. The goal of including a heuristics
solution in this population is to reduce the search space from the
size of the global space, thereby reducing the search time.
3. No WIP inventory buffer is allowed between stations.
4. Parallel stations are not allowed.
5. Common tasks exist between models, which must be assigned to the same stations.
The concept of a combined precedence diagram is to transform different models into an equivalent single model. The combined diagram is constructed by taking the union of the nodes
and the precedence relations of the diagrams of all the models.
The construction of the combined diagram is straightforward
with precedence matrices. A simple example is given in Fig. 1
to illustrate the process of constructing a combined diagram. The
3 Model description
The mixed-model assembly line balancing approach utilizes the
concept of combined precedence diagrams to join the precedence
relations of different models in a single diagram. Typically, there
are several tasks common to the various models manufactured on
a mixed model assembly line, with similar precedence relations
among these tasks. Thus, the similarity between the precedence
relations of different models has been utilized. The assumptions
of the model are listed below:
1. Task time of each models are known constants.
2. Precedence diagram for each models are known.
Fig. 1a–c. Precedence diagrams of a model A b model B c combined precedence diagram
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numbers within the circles represent tasks, and the arrows connecting the circles specify the precedence relations.
The objective function of the problem is
Min
k
!
Ak
k=1
where
k = Number of stations,
Ak = Total number of stations.
= 1 if station k is utilized by any one model.
cycle time. Now, we multiply the respective task times of the
models by corresponding production shares and add up the task
time for all the models to get average task time. Next, we determine the positional weight (PW) for each task using the average
task time. The positional weight of a task in a mixed-model assembly line is the cumulative average task time associated with
itself and its successors. Then we rank the work elements based
on the PW and proceed to assign work elements to the workstations, where elements of the highest PW and rank are assigned
first. If at any workstation additional time remains after the assignment of an operation, we assign the next succeeding ranked
operation to the workstation, as long as the operation does not
violate the precedence relationships and cycle time.
4 Hybrid Approach
4.3 Hybrid genetic algorithm
Gentic algorithm have been proven effective in many combinatorial optimization problems, and it seems natural to apply the
approach to a mixed-model assembly line balancing. To improve
the capability of searching for a good solution, we introduce
a hybrid genetic algorithm with the modified ranked positional
weight method (MRPW). First, a classical GA method is used
to test the problem and then solved by the modified ranked positional weight method. Finally, the solution generated by the
heuristic method is introduced randomly into initial pools and
proceed by the GA method.
In the proposed hybrid genetic algorithm, the initial solution is
obtained from the modified ranked positional weight method and
included in the initial population of the genetic algorithm. This
approach reduces the search space from the size of the global
space, thereby reducing the search time.
4.1 Genetic Algorithm
Genetic algorithms are stochastic search methods that mimic
the metaphor of natural biological evolution. Genetic algorithms
operate on a population of potential solutions applying the principle of “survival of the fittest” to produce increasingly better
approximations to a solution. At each generation, a new set of
approximations is created by the process of selecting individuals according to their level of fitness in the problem domain,
and breeding them together using operators borrowed from natural genetics. This process leads to the evolution of better suited
populations. The three most important aspects of using genetic
algorithms are:
1. definition of the objective function;
2. definition and implementation of the genetic representation;
and
3. definition and implementation of the genetic operators.
At the beginning of the computation a number of individuals (the
population) are randomly initialised.
4.2 Modified ranked positional weight method (MRPW)
The modified ranked positional weight method was introduced
by Helgeson and Birnie [1] for a Type-I single model line balancing problem. Here, we apply this method in mixed model
balancing. First, we determine the number of models and the production share of each model, and then we calculate the production share of each model in terms of the percentage having a fixed
5 Experiments and analysis
We applied two similar models to a mixed-model assembly line
balancing problem. The precedence diagrams of the two models
and their tasks times are given in Table 1. Note that as shown
in Fig. 1, the combined diagram has 11 tasks, where as the first
and second models have seven and nine tasks, respectively. Cycle
time is 10 min for each model.
5.1 Genetic algorithm
The experiment is first solved by genetic algorithm for various
models. The inputs for the genetic algorithm procedure such as
population size, crossover probability, mutation probability is 50,
0.8 and 0.05. Also, the task time of the models and precedence
Table 1. Task time for two models
No of tasks 1
Models
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Model A
Model B
5
–
4
4
–
1
–
5
–
6
2
2
4
–
3
3
–
5
3
3
1
1
Table 2. Optimal station assignment of the illustrative example: GA
No of
Task at
Model A Station time Model B Station time
work station each station
(s)
(s)
1.
2.
3.
1,4,5,8,9
3,6,2
10,7,11
1,8,9
3,2
7,11
8
9
5
1,4,5,9
3,6
10,7,11
10
10
10
340
diagrams of the two models are given as input. The optimal station assignment of the illustrative example for classical GA is
given in Table 2. The execution time for this example is 391 s.
Table 5. Comparison of GA and MRPW
No of
observation
No of
models
taken
Total task
in combined
diagram
Number of workstations
MRPW
Genetic
algorithm
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
12
13
15
16
16
18
5
6
8
6
8
13
13
5.2 Modified ranked positional weight method
The demand for each of the models are equal and the weighted
task times are given for calculating the positional weights. The
positional weights and the ranking of the tasks for the illustrative example are given in Table 3. The optimal station assignment
of the illustrative example for the modified ranked positional
weight method is given in Table 4. A comparison of the results
for various models is given in Table 5. It reveals that the classical
GA method offers superior solutions, compared to the modified
ranked position weight method. The graphical representation of
the results is shown in Fig. 2.
Table 6. Comparison of pure GA and hybrid GA
No of
observation
No of
models
taken
Total no of
tasks in
combined diagram
Processing time (s)
Classical GA Hybrid GA
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
12
13
15
16
16
18
136
553
226
324
631
718
832
5.3 Hybrid genetic algorithm
The experiment is also tested by a hybrid genetic algorithm for
various models. The inputs for the hybrid genetic algorithm procedure such as population size, crossover probability, mutation
3
4
5
4
5
8
10
86
200
116
214
376
595
627
Table 3. Positional weight of the tasks
No of tasks 1
2
3
4
5
6
5
—
2.5
7.5
8
4
4
4
9
5
—
1
0.5
11
2
— —
5
6
2.5 3
10.5 8
3
7
7
8
9
2
2
2
5
10
4
3
— 3
2
3
10.5 8.5
4
6
10
11
—
5
2.5
5.5
9
3
3
3
3
11
Models
Model A
Model B
Average task time
Positional weight
Rank
1
1
1
12
1
Table 4. Optimal station assignment of the illustrative example: MRPW
Work
stations
Task at
each station
Station time
(s)
1
2
3
4
5
1,4,5
8,3
9,6
2,10
7,11
7
8
9
10
5
Fig. 3. Comparison of GA and hybrid GA
probability are 50, 0.8 and 0.05. Also, the task time of the models
and precedence diagrams of the two models are given as input.
The solutions from the MRPW are randomly inserted into the
initial pools and retested. The execution time of the hybrid genetic algorithm is found to be less than that of the classical GA.
The execution time for this illustrative example is 110 s. A comparison of the results for the various models is given in Table 6.
It reveals that the hybrid GA method is superior to the classical
GA in terms of execution time. The graphical representation of
the results is shown in Fig. 3.
6 Conclusion
Fig. 2. Comparison of GA and MRPW
In this study, we have presented a hybrid genetic algorithm approach to solve the mixed-model assembly line balancing prob-
341
lem. The genetic algorithm approach is shown to produce better
results than the modified rank position weight in the minimization of workstations. Next, we combined the solution of the
MRPW approach with that produced by a genetic algorithm and
make a hybrid genetic algorithm. This approach results in better
performance than a classical genetic algorithm.
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