Abstract:

The concept of extendable region is introduced to solve the conveyor stoppage problem on a mixed-model assembly line,and some problems,such as the necessary and suficient conditions due to which the conveyor stoppage may occur,and the bounds of the objective function are studied.Then,a restricted-ACO (Ant Colony Optimization)algorithm is proposed to solve the car-sequencing problem with buffer restriction under a round painted body storage,which reaches the objective to minimize the total conveyor stoppage time.Illustrations are finally presented to reveal the advantages of the proposed strategy and the effect of the leveling of material flow on the conveyor stoppage.

Key words: car-sequencing problem, ant colony algorithm, mixed-model assembly line, conveyor stoppage