Artificial bee colony algorithm for CONWIP production control system in a multi-product multi-machine manufacturing environment

In this paper, a multi-product multi-machine serial production line operated under a constant-work-in-process protocol is considered. A mathematical model for the system is first presented, and then an artificial bee colony optimization algorithm is applied to simultaneously find the optimal work-in-process inventory level as well as job sequence order in order to minimize the overall makespan time. Unlike many existing approaches, which are based on deterministic search algorithms such as nonlinear programming and mixed integer programming, the proposed method does not use a linearized or simplified model of the system. A production line simulator implemented on MATLAB is, instead, employed to model the highly nonlinear dynamics of the production line and is used to evaluate the candidate solutions. The efficiency of the proposed approach, even for systems of large sizes, is validated via numerical simulations.