A variable neighbourhood search based heuristic for buffer allocation problem in production lines

The buffer allocation problem, i.e. how much buffer storage to allow and where to place the buffer, is an important research issue in designing production lines. In this study, we present a new solution approach based on variable neighbourhood search to determine the optimal buffer allocations for a serial production line with unreliable machines. The objective is to maximize the throughput of the line under the constant total buffer size constraint. To evaluate the throughput of the line simulation is used. The performance of the proposed heuristic approach is demonstrated by a numerical example. © 2017 Slovenian Society Informatika. All Rights Reserved