Balancing machining transfer lines using genetic algorithms

A balancing problem for machining transfer lines is considered. The objective is to assign a set of given machining operations to a number of multi-spindle machines while minimizing the line cost and respecting a number of given technological and economical constraints. In comparison with the well-studied Assembly Line Balancing Problem, a number of additional constraints involved with machining environment are taken into account, for example, non-strict precedence constraints and parallel operations performing. To solve this problem, a two different genetic algorithms are suggested and compared on several sets of randomly generated and industrial problems. The results of computational experiments are presented and analyzed.