Article ID: | iaor20118424 |
Volume: | 3 |
Issue: | 2 |
Start Page Number: | 139 |
End Page Number: | 159 |
Publication Date: | Nov 1997 |
Journal: | Journal of Heuristics |
Authors: | Kumar Ashok, Jacobson H, Johnson W, Sullivan A, Fleischer A |
Keywords: | optimization: simulated annealing, heuristics: tabu search, production: FMS |
Flexibility has become an important priority in the formulation and implementation of manufacturing strategies. This in turn has opened up a new class of design problems for such systems. Flexible assembly systems (FAS), consisting of a variety of processors and operations, provide the opportunity for improving product manufacturing flexibility, hence gaining competitive advantages. This paper considers a particular design decision problem for FAS. A matrix‐based, polynomial‐time lower bound algorithm is presented. Simulated annealing and tabu search metaheuristics are formulated to address the problems. Computational experience with these metaheuristics is reported.