Optimum Machines Allocation in a Serial Production Line Using NSGA-II and TOPSIS

In the present scenario, manufacturing industries are witnessing large fluctuation in the product demands. The need of the hour is to have a responsive manufacturing system, which can cope up with these kinds of stochastic events. Reconfigurable Manufacturing System (RMS) is considered as modern manufacturing paradigm that offers customised functionality and capacity as and when required. The key enablers for this customisation in functionality and capacity are the Reconfigurable Machine Tools (RMTs) or simply Reconfigurable Machines (RMs). Selecting these multi-functionality and capacity machines along stations/stages of a product flow line is an important aspect for operating RMSs as it has direct implications on the operational performance of such system. In this paper, optimal configurations are selected under conflicting objectives based on cost, operation capability and reliability of the machines. The objective is to assign those machine configurations that minimises the cost while maximising the operation and reliability of the production line. The problem is framed as a multi-objective optimisation problem and is solved using NSGA-II. The results so obtained are discussed in terms of the performance of the reconfigurable system.