A HYBRID SIMULATED ANNEALING FOR A MULTI-OBJECTIVE STOCHASTIC ASSEMBLY LINE BALANCING PROBLEM

Asssembly line balancing is the problem of assigning tasks to the workstations, while optimizing one or more objectives without violating restrictions imposed on the line. In practice, task times may be random due to the worker fatigue, low skill levels, job dissatisfaction, poorly maintained equipment, defects in raw material, etc. When stochastic task times are taken consideration in assembly lines, balancing procedure is more complex due to the probability of incompleteness of stations times in a given cycle time. In this study, a multi-objective simulated annealing algorithm (m_SAA) is proposed for single-model, stochastic assembly line balancing problem with the aim of minimizing of smoothness index and total design cost. To obtain Pareto-optimal solutions, m_SAA implements tabu list and a multinomial probability mass function approach. The effectiveness of the proposed m_SAA is comparatively investigated using another SA using weight-sum approach on the test problems. Computational results show that m_SAA with multinomial probability mass function approach is more effective than SA with weight-sum approach in terms of quality of Pareto-optimal solutions.