A multi-objective assembly line balancing problem with worker’s skill and qualification considerations in fuzzy environment

In this study a new multi-objective assembly line balancing problem is studied. Objectives like the number of stations, the equipment purchasing cost, the worker time dependent wage, and worker dependent dis-quality level of the stations is to be minimized simultaneously with worker allocation and equipment assignment possibilities. The problem also is formulated in a fuzzy environment. To solve such problem, a new hybrid fuzzy interactive approach is proposed in two stages. In the first stage, the fuzzy formulation is converted to a crisp multi-objective formulation using a credibility-based chance constrained programming approach. Then in the second stage, the obtained crisp multi-objective formulation is solved by a new hybrid fuzzy programming approach. To evaluate the proposed approach, two generated examples and a case study from garment production industries are used for computational experiments. The extensive computational study prove the superiority of the proposed approach over the well-known approaches of the literature.