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A Study of Resource Planning for Precast Production

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DOI: 10.3763/asre.2007.5016

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© 2007 University of Sydney. All rights reserved. Architectural Science Review
www.arch.usyd.edu.au/asr Volume 50.2, pp 106-114

A Study of Resource Planning for Precast

Production

Hao Hu

Institute of Engineering Management, School of Naval Architecture, Ocean and Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong
University, 1954 Huashan Road, Shanghai 200030, China
Tel: 8621-62933091; Fax: 8621-52580400; Email: hhu@sjtu.edu.cn

Received 20 July 2006; accepted 20 November 2006

Abstract: Previous studies of the precast production scheduling problems seldom consider resource planning problem. In particular,
available scheduling models and approaches have not included mould planning. The paper describes a GA based approach for minimiz-
ing mould usage in the precast production scheduling problem posed using the Flow Shop Sequencing Model (FSSM). The minimiza-
tion problem is initially formulated and solved as a single objective optimization problem, and then as a multi-objective optimization
problem, by including makespan and tardiness as additional objectives. The normalized weighted Genetic Algorithm (GA) approach
is then used to solve the multi-objective optimization problem. Computational results are given to demonstrate the effectiveness and
usefulness of the approach.

Keywords: Precast production, Resource planning, Mould planning, Optimization, Genetic algorithms, Flow shop sequencing model

Introduction
Precast concrete elements have been widely used to increase
construction productivity as well as the buildability and quality of
the buildings. The typical production process of a precast element
in the plant consists of the following sequence: (1) prefabricating
reinforcement cages and move them to moulds; (2) mixing of
concrete and moving it from a mixing center to moulds; (3) setting
of moulds: cleaning and oiling of mould surfaces, and fastening of
side frames; (4) placing of reinforcement (cages), fixtures, electrical
conduits, and inserts etc. to be contained in the components; (5)
casting: pouring, compacting and leveling of concrete; (6) curing:
through artificial (usually heating) or natural air curing process;
(7) demoulding: stripping the side frame and taking out the com-
ponents; (8) finishing, patching and repairing of components; (9)
placing the completed components in the stockyard to achieve
the delivery strength, and (10) transporting the precast items to
the construction site.
Much effort has been put into the study of efficient planning
and scheduling methods for precast production (Chan & Hu
2002b; Dawood 1995). Approaches using mathematical program-
ming (Chan & Hu 2002a; Warszawski 1984), capacity-planning
(Dawood & Neale 1993), simulation (Balbontin-Bravo 1998) and
process scheduling (Chan & Hu 1998; Leu & Hwang 2002) have
been developed for precast production planning and scheduling.
However, previous studies seldom consider the resource planning
problem. In particular, these scheduling models and approaches
do not include mould planning. Leu and Hwang (2002) consid-
ered the conditions of resource constraints such as labor, cranes,
steam curing capacity and reinforcement cage storage space in
their GA-based resource-constrained flow-shop scheduling model
for precast production. However, the resource considered did not
include mould. Additionally, the model has only been applied to
simple production situations. Available models usually consider
how to assign production tasks (precast elements) to moulds and
how to sequence production tasks to meet constraints and realize
the objectives set. The models do not consider the numbers and
types of moulds needed and how to construct a schedule even whilst
optimizing mould availability. It is important to consider mould
planning whilst doing production scheduling, as moulds are one of
the most important production resources used in the precast plant.
Due to their cost and the limited production space available in precast
yards, their numbers and types are generally limited. Therefore, a
decision on the mould types and numbers of each type to employ
in production scheduling is of great importance to precasters.
Chan and Hu (1998) investigated the appropriateness of three
kinds of models, namely a single machine sequencing model, a
parallel machine sequencing model and a flow-shop scheduling
model to optimize the precast production process. A subsequent
paper (Chan & Hu, 2001) refined the ideas proposed and developed
a model, the FSSM, based on ideas from flow shop sequencing. It
is assumed there were enough moulds for the prefabrication in the
Hao Hu Resource Planning for Precast Production 107

FSSM. However, this does not reflect the actual situation where Empty Empty Empty
mould mould moulds
the number of each mould type is limited by cost and space.
Hence, a production sequence obtained by the FSSM may not Schedule
always be feasible for execution as scheduled due to the unavail- Empty Setting Setting Casting
ability of the required moulds. Even if production space allows mould moulds rebars
and more than enough moulds are available, the extra moulds are a
waste of resource due to their underutilization. This shortcoming Mould Mould Mould
weakens the application of the FSSM model in actual production
scheduling. Empty
mould
This paper reports on the work that has been done to include
mould planning into the Flow Shop Sequencing Model. The rest … Mould
Mould Mould
of the paper is organized as follows: immediately following this
section is a review of the Flow Shop Sequencing Model used for
production scheduling and a discussion of mould planning prac- Demou Curing
Element -lding
tices in precast plants. A GA approach is developed to consider
mould planning and minimize mould usage in the FSSM. This
Element
is followed by the computational results of a real example. The
paper concludes by commenting on the utility of the GA for mould Element Finished
Element
planning and precast production scheduling. Element elements
Repairing Element
finishing
Mould Planning in Precast Production
The precast production scheduling can be categorized as being Figure 1: Flow shop sequencing model.
either the specialized or the comprehensive type (Chan & Hu Figure 1. Flow shop sequencing model.
2001; Warszawski, 1990). In comprehensive scheduling, a fixed where no operation is carried out at a workstation even though the
production cycle (say one day) is kept. In specialized scheduling, workstation is free and a new component is available, are allowed
the production of an element flows along a line where either the to be inserted into the schedule. Apart from curing which is a
element moves along the production line or work crews move special operation and will be discussed later, the completion time
between moulds. For the specialized scheduling problem, Chan of pre-emptible operations and non-pre-emptible operations can
and Hu (2001) developed a Flow Shop Sequencing Model that be computed as Equations (1) and (2) respectively. More explana-
considers the processing of n jobs (precast elements) on m machines tion of these two operations is provided in Chan and Hu (2002b).
(workstations or crews). The section reviews the FSSM.
(1)
Flow Shop Sequencing Model

Based on the investigation and observation of precast plants,

precast production under the specialized method possesses many of
the characteristics of the traditional flow-shop scheduling problem
(FSP). The FSP was first discussed by Johnson (1954) and since
then the m-machine (m≥2) problem has held the attention of many (2)
researchers (Dudek et al., 1992). Baker (1974) gave a general
description of the FSP. Chan and Hu (2001) developed a Flow
Shop Sequencing Model (FSSM) for precast scheduling based on
the standard FSP. In the FSSM, all operations can be pre-empted
with the exception of casting and curing. The objective is to find where
a schedule (i.e. the job processing sequence) that gives the mini- and
mum makespan or meets delivery dates. Precedence constraints
between jobs have further been added to the FSSM, and makespan The makespan, which is the completion time of the last job on
and total tardiness penalty are minimized simultaneously using a the last machine, is calculated as:
normalized weighted GA (NWGA) (Chan & Hu 2002b). The
flow-shop sequencing model is illustrated in Figure 1. (3)
The processing time of job i on machine k is given by tik (i=1,…n;
k=1,…m). Let C(ji, k) denote the completion time of job ji on In the traditional flow-shop scheduling model, a new operation
machine k, {j1, j2, … jn} denote a job permutation, and let TD (ji, k) of job ji on machine k cannot be started until ji flows from
and TN denote the daily normal-working time and off-normal machine k-1 and job ji-1 has been finished on machine k. However,
working time respectively, where TN=24-TD. Let OT represent different components can be cured simultaneously. The beginning
overtime. A workstation starts its operation if it is possible to of a component’s curing is only dependent on the finish of its
do so (the workstation has finished the operation for the present casting (i.e. the processing of job ji on machine k-1). A compo-
component and a new component is available). No idle time slots, nent can be cured as soon as it is cast and it need not wait for the
108 Architectural Science Review Volume 50, Number 2, June 2007

Can produce
completion of curing of another component (curing space in the Mould group
Element group
chamber permitting). However, if the finish time of the curing
activity falls during the off-normal period, i.e. between (24d+TD) Similar Moulds of
element types Can produce similar type
and 24(d+1), the next operation, demoulding, cannot be started with changeovers
until the next working day, i.e. the 24(d+1)th hour. In the model, Element type Mould type
curing is the fourth operation. Let c(ji, 4) denote the curing end
time of the ji-th component, which is calculated as Equation (4). Same pieces
of elements Can produce Similar molds
without changeover
(4) Element piece Individual mould

Figure 2: The relationship between elements and moulds

Figure 2. The relationship between elements and moulds.
Start
mouldNo[g]=

Calculate compStartTime[k] and compFinishTime[k]

for every component k in the schedule

Let di denote the due date, and C(ji, m) the completion time moldFinishTime[startComp[g]]
=compFinishTime[startComp[g]]
for job ji. Associated with each job is a unit earliness penalty mouldNo[g]=mouldNo[g]+1
αi>o and a unit tardiness penalty βi > 0. Tardiness Ti is defined
Search for the next component i that belongs
as Ti = max{0, C(ji, m) - di} while earliness Ei is defined as Ei to group g.
= max{0, di - C(ji, m)}. A job ji can be given a time window ai
No
within which no penalties are incurred if its completion time is i�endComp[g]
within the interval (di-ai, di+ai). Let ∏ be the set of all possible Yes
job sequences and σ be an arbitrary sequence. Assuming that the j=1
penalty functions are linear, a generic expression for the Earliness Yes
/ Tardiness (E/T) penalty can be formulated as Equation (5). compStartTime[i]< No
mouldFinishTime[j]

(5) Yes
j=j+1

Yes
j�mouldNo[g]

No
No
j>mouldNo[g]

Yes
The E/T penalties are reduced to a tardiness penalty if only mouldNo[g]=mouldNo[g]+1; mouldFinishTime[j]
mouldFinishTime[mouldNo[g]] =compFinishTime[i]
tardiness is considered. =compFinishTime[i]

Mould Planning

The main pieces of equipment in a prefabrication plant are the End

casting moulds made of steel or timber. Each project site usually
needs several different types of precast elements/components. There
may be several pieces of elements needed of each type on different
due dates. The elements of the same type can be produced on the
same mould without mould changeovers. On the other hand,
several types of similar components with minor variations are or-
ganized as an element group. Within the same component group,
a mould changeover is needed to shift from the production of one
component type to another. The production of a group of similar
components usually requires several similar moulds of the same
mould type. Moulds of the same type form a mould group which
is directly related to an element group. The relationship between
elements and mould type is illustrated in Figure 2.
Mould planning can be attempted by casting it as a mould
usage leveling / minimization problem. The objective in mould
usage leveling is to reduce peak mould requirements and smooth
the period-to-period mould usage within the production duration,
whilst the objective in mould usage minimization is to reduce the
mouldNo[g] - the number of moulds in group g;
startComp[g] - the first component in the schedule that is to be produced by mould group g;
endComp[g] - the last component in the schedule that is to be produced by mould group g;
mouldFinishTime[j]- demould end time of mould j;
compStartTime[i]- processing start time of component i; 27
compFinishTime[i]- demould end time of component i.
Figure 3. Calculation of a mould usage profile for the FSSM.
Figure 3: Calculation of mould usage for the FSSM
28
number of moulds needed. In order to describe how mould planning
can be included into the Flow Shop Sequencing Model, the rest of
this section will cover the following issues: (1) mould usage profile;
(2) mould usage minimization; (3) mould usage leveling.
After the precast component is demoulded, the released mould
can be reused for the production of a new component from the
component group that can be produced by this mould type. For
a given schedule, the number of moulds required in group g for
every scheduling time unit (for example, hour) is summed. The
number of moulds used over the scheduling period is defined as the
Hao Hu
mould usage profile for mould group g. The flowchart in Figure 3
shows how to calculate the mould usage profile for mould group
g given a known schedule.
For a given mould group g, mould usage minimization problem
for one mould group is defined as Equation (6), whilst the total
number of moulds required for the whole schedule is optimized
as Equation (7)
.
(6)
(7)
where g denotes mould group g and mould No[g] denotes the maxi-
mum number of moulds required over the scheduling period.
On the other hand, mould usage leveling for a given mould
group g is defined as Equation (8), whilst the mould usage leveling
for all mould groups is defined as Equation (9)
. on a population (of solutions) of fixed size (P) as follows:
(8)
(9)
where mould Not[g] denotes the actual mould number required
in time t.
For convenience of presentation, a 44-component example
is introduced (Chan & Hu 2001). The production times are
given in Table 1. The relationship between component types
and mould group is also shown in this table. It shows that six
groups of moulds are required for the production of these 44
precast components.
Chan and Hu (2001) obtained a schedule with a makespan
of 174.1 hours and a tardiness penalty of 0.0 units for this ex-
ample using a GA approach without considering mould usage
leveling / minimization. The job sequence of this schedule is:
39-35-25-36-33-28-27-29-32-10-2-9-34-26-12-30-1-44-11-38-
6-3-40-13-21-23-8-5-4-43-19-17-37-31-7-41-14-20-42-15-18-
22-24-16. Table 2 gives the processing start times and demould
end times of these components.
The mould usage profiles of the six mould groups obtained using
the algorithm described in Figure 3 are shown in Figure 4.
From Figure 4, it is observed that the occupation time for
certain mould groups is very short. There are sharp peaks of
very short duration. Such peak mould usage may be reduced if
the job sequence is rescheduled or the processing start times of
some components are delayed. For example, the production of
elements 25 and 26 (the 3rd and the 14th element in the schedule)
both require mould group 5. The demould end time of element
25 is 25.3 hrs, and the processing start time of element 26 is 25.1
hrs. Therefore, if the start time of element 26 is late than 25.3
hrs, that is, if the processing is delayed by 0.2 hours (25.3-25.1),
element 26 can make use the mould that was last used by element
25. Consequently, a new mould is not required. The new mould
usage for group (5) is depicted in Figure 5.
This is a tough task for precast schedulers, and there is no simple
heuristic rule available. In actual practice, the precasters schedule
mould usage according to the mould-component relationship and
average component production cycle. However, this is not enough
to obtain an optimal schedule in terms of mould usage especially
Resource Planning for Precast Production 109
among different mould groups. In particular, it is quite difficult
to also satisfy other objectives such as minimizing makespan and
meeting due dates. A GA approach is proposed in this paper for
better mould usage planning and production scheduling, details
of which are described in the sections below.
Mould Planning with Genetic Algorithms
Basic Genetic Algorithms
Genetic algorithms (Gas) are inspired by the process of natural
evolution and the principle of “survival of the fittest” (Holland 1975).
GAs iteratively generate new solutions from currently available solu-
tions and replace some or all of the existing members of the current
solution pool with the newly created members. The quality of the
solution pool should improve with the passage of time because of
the selection procedure. According to Davis (1991), a GA operates
(1) Initialize a pool, known as the parent pool, of P randomly
created individuals;
(2) Measure the goodness of each individual in the parent pool
with respect to the problem evaluation function and convert the
absolute objective values to relative fitness values;
(3) Select individuals in the parent pool for the creation of the
next generation with a probability relative to their fitness;
(4) Create new individuals, known as the offspring, by means of
GA operators (crossover and/or mutation) on the selected parent
genotypes;
(5) Use a selection scheme to select the next parent pool for the
new generation;
(6) If pre-specified stopping criteria are met, then stop the GA
cycle; otherwise return to step 2.
Each individual solution is represented by a single string-like
entity called a chromosome. A chromosome typically consists of a
number of genes, which may be visualized as boxes arranged in a linear
fashion. Two attributes are associated with each gene: its position
and its contents. When applied to scheduling, each individual in the
population corresponds to one possible solution of the scheduling
problem. A chromosome is the internal representation of the solu-
tion and consists of a linear string of genes that can be transformed
directly or decoded indirectly to produce an actual schedule.
There are two kinds of operations in GA: (1) Genetic operations:
crossover and mutation, and (2) the evolution operation: selection.
The genetic operations mimic the process of heredity of genes to
create new offspring in each generation. The evolution operation
mimics the process of Darwinian evolution to create populations
from generation to generation.
The good performance of GAs can be explained using the schema
theorem (Holland, 1975). Schemata are sets of solutions in the search
space, and the GA process is thought to direct the search towards
schemata containing highly fit regions of the search space. Schemata
can be expressed as similarity templates, defined over a finite alpha-
bet, which describes a subset of strings with similarities at certain
string positions. The great computational advantage of GAs lies in
their inherent property of being able to process a large quantity of
schemata at each iteration. Good schemata receive an exponentially
increasing number of trials in successive generations.
110 Architectural Science Review Volume 50, Number 2, June 2007

Table 1: Quantity and production times for the 44-component example.

Components Moulds Crews
Component- Project Moulds Rebars Casting Demoulding Finishing
Quantity Mould groups required
type supplied (2 men) (2 men) (4 men) ( 2 men) ( 3 men)
Type 1 4 I Mould group 1 1.6 1 2 1 2
Type 2 4 I 1 0.5 1.5 0.8 1.2
Mould group 2
Type 3 8 I 2 2.5 2.8 1.8 1
Type 4 2 II 1.5 1.8 2 1.5 1.5
Mould group 3
Type 5 2 II 1.5 1.6 1.5 1.2 0.5
Type 6 2 II 2 1.8 0.7 1.5 0.5
Mould group 4
Type 7 2 II 1.8 2.2 2 1.8 1.2
Type 8 8 II Mould group 5 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.5 0.0
Type 9 8 II 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.4 0.8
Mould group 6
Type 10 4 II 0.3 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.5
Notes: (1) Time unit in the above form is hour. (2) The production times used in the 44-component example are the average values observed in
practice. (3) Natural curing was used, and its duration is 12 hours.

Table 2: Prefabrication start times and demould end times of the 44 elements.
Job Serial No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Element sequence 39 35 25 36 33 28 27 29 32 10 2 9 34 26 12
Start time (hrs) 0.0 0.3 0.6 1.0 1.3 1.6 2.0 2.4 2.8 3.2 5.2 6.8 24.8 25.1 25.5
Demould end time
24.4 24.8 25.3 25.7 26.1 26.6 27.1 27.6 28.1 29.9 49.0 50.8 51.2 51.7 53.5
(hrs)
Job Serial No. 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Element sequence 30 1 44 11 38 6 3 40 13 21 23 8 5 4 43
Start time (hrs) 27.5 27.9 29.5 29.8 31.8 48.1 49.1 50.7 51.0 53.0 55.0 72.8 73.8 74.8 76.4
Demould end time
72.5 73.5 73.8 75.6 76.0 76.8 77.8 96.4 98.2 99.7 101.5 102.3 103.1 121.0 121.3
(hrs)
Job Serial No. 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44
Element sequence 19 17 37 31 7 41 14 20 42 15 18 22 24 16
Start time 76.7 78.2 79.7 80.0 96.4 97.4 97.7 99.7 101.2 101.5 103.5 121.0 123.0 124.8
Demould end time
122.5 124.0 124.4 124.9 125.7 126.0 145.8 147.0 147.3 149.1 150.6 169.5 171.3 173.1
(hrs)

may look like that shown in Figure 6. In the figure, position

An Implementation of GA for Mould Planning
Representation: Two different kinds of representation can be
adopted in the process scheduling problem: one is based on
random keys (Bean, 1994), the other is based on permutation
ordering (Goldberg & Lingle, 1985). The random key represen-
tation in the adaptation of the Flow Shop Sequencing Model for
the precast production was used. The random key representation
was first proposed by Bean (1994) and encodes a solution with
random numbers between 0 and 1. These random values are
used as sort keys to represent the scheduling priority to be used
to decide the schedule. A chromosome based on random keys
i in the list represents component i. The random number in
position i determines the processing order of component i in a
schedule. Random keys solve the problem of illegal offspring that
may be generated during genetic operations on chromosomes at
the expense of an enlarged search space.
Crossover and mutation: The traditional crossover can be used
without modification in the random key representation. A two-
point crossover (in Figure 7) and a constant mutation were used
respectively. In constant mutation, a suitable constant value will
be added (or subtracted) to (or from) the existing gene value of
gene i (Figure 8).
Decoding: The decoding of the random key representation is a
Hao Hu Resource Planning for Precast Production 111

6 6
simple process. The random values are used as
5 5
sort keys, in ascending or descending order, to

Mold number

Mold number
4 4
decode the solution and to get a legal schedule. 3 3
In this study, the random keys are sorted in 2 2
ascending order. The new list is then compared 1 1
against to the initial permutation to get the 0 0
processing schedule (Chan & Hu, 2001). 0 25 50 75 100
T ime (hrs)
125 150 175 0 25 50 75 100
T ime (hrs)
125 150 175

Mould type (1) Mould type (2)

Objective Evaluation Functions
6 6

The problem of mould usage minimization 5 5

is considered in the current application. The 4

Mold number
4

Mold number
objective evaluation value of the GA is the mould 3 3

usage calculated as equations (8) and (9). 2 2

Many real world problems involve several 1 1

objective functions simultaneously. Besides 0 0

0 25 50 75 100 125 150 175 0 25 50 75 100 125 150 175
minimizing the number of moulds needed, T ime (hrs) T ime (hrs)
precasters are usually interested in attaining
Mould group (3)
schedules with shorter makespan and smaller Mould group (4)
tardiness penalties. Chan and Hu (2002b) 6 6

proposed a normalized weighted genetic algo- 5 5

rithm (NWGA) based on the weighted sum

Mold number

Mold number
4

approach by Murata et al. (1996). NWGA, 3 3

depicted in equations (12) and (13), can be used 2 2

to optimize several objectives simultaneously. 1 1

0 0
(10) 0 25 50 75 100
T ime (hrs)
125 150 175 0 25 50 75 100
T ime (hrs)
125 150 175

Mould group (5) Mould group (6)

Figure 4: Mould usage profile of the schedule given in Table 3

Figure 4. Mould usage profile of the schedule given in Table 3.
where yi denotes the i-th objective value;
fi is the normalized objective value; yb and yw are the best
and the worst objective value from the single objective GA.
The objective function of the NWGA is represented as: 6
5
M o ld num ber

where wi is the weight for fi and is a random value between 0 and
1 in this GA implementation.
Computational Results
Mould usage may be reduced by shortly delaying the production
of some elements and this may not lengthen the makespan because
in the schedule there exists idle waiting time which can be viewed
as “buffers” to absorb short delays. Short delays in some worksta-
tions need not necessarily delay the processing of other elements
that are behind the delayed elements, nor affect the makespan and
tardiness penalty of the whole schedule. This can be shown by
the schedule given in Table 2. The results of different delays of
the start time of given elements are reported in Table 3. Results
show that short delays of elements 26 and 4 do not prolong the
schedule makespan and increase tardiness penalty, even though
the mould usage is reduced.
As discussed in the previous section, there are two ways to reduce
mould usage, either to delay the processing of certain components
4
3
2
1
0
0 25 50 75 100 125 150 175
T ime (hrs)
Figure 5: Mould usage profile of mould group (5) after manual
Figure 5. Mould usage profile levelling
of mould group (5) after manual leveling.
29
or to reschedule the job sequence. Although Table 3 shows that the
insertion of short delays into production schedule results in less
mould needed, it is difficult to control and manage the “delays”
in real precast plants. In this GA method, the second method was
adopted because the strength of GA lies in its efficiency in explor-
ing the solution space.
The results of minimizing total mould usage and as well as
individual mould group usage employing GA approach are sum-
marized in Table 4. From Table 4, it is seen that the total mould
usage can be reduced to 21 but the schedules have to incur larger
tardiness penalties (more than 5000 units) and longer schedule
makespan (around 193 hours), compared with the schedule with
0.0 units tardiness penalty / 174.1 hours makespan given in Table
3 where 25 moulds are required. This shows that the processing
112 Architectural Science Review Volume 50, Number 2, June 2007

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
of some components have been delayed in order to reduce mould
usage. The results also show that the number of moulds in each 0.11 0.98 0.03 0.23 0.87 0.91 0.36 0.51 0.72 0.84
group can be reduced to one if it is set as the objective function.
Reducing the number of moulds of certain group is significant in
real world production if their cost is much more expensive than X Gene position
the others are. Y Gene value
On the other hand, this study use the multi-objective GA ap-
proach to optimize total mould usage, makespan or/and tardiness Figure 6: Chromosomal representations for mould planning
penalty simultaneously. The results are also reported in Table 4. Figure 6. Chromosomal representation for mould planning.
The results show that a good balance between different objectives
Parent 1 A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9 A10
can also be achieved by employing the NWGA.
If we run the NWGA enough times, it is possible to obtain the Parent 2 B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 B10
Pareto optimal or non-dominated solutions. However, as indicated Child 1 A1 A2 A3 B4 B5 B6 B7 A8 A9 A10
in Chan and Hu (2002b), difference of solutions near the Pareto
Child 2 B1 B2 B3 A4 A5 A6 A7 B8 B9 B10
front are small. In real-world prefabrication, many precasters are not
sensitive to these small differences. They will make a trade-off on Figure 7. Two-point crossover
mould usage, makespan and timely delivery for different purposes. Figure 7. Two-point crossover.
Therefore, it is necessary to generate as many compromise solutions
0.11 0.98 0.03 0.23 0.87 0.91 0.36 0.51 0.72 0.84
as possible near the Pareto frontier. The proposed NWGA is quite
effective at generating such solutions. So Table 4 presents some
0.11 0.98 0.06 0.25 0.87 0.91 0.36 0.51 0.72 0.84
good solutions rather than the optimal ones. As a consequence, one
solution may dominate another in this table. For example, solution v � v � c�v
where v is the allele value, c is the constant value.
(21, 172.6, 362) dominates solution (22, 172.6, 771).
0 . 25 � 0 . 23 � 0 . 1 � 0 . 23
The goal of multi-objective optimization is to find the Pareto
optimal frontier (trade-off curve), which consists of the non- Figure 8: Constant mutation
dominated solutions. A number of researchers have developed Figure 8. Constant mutation.
different implementation of multi-objective Genetic Algorithms.
This paper used the NWGA to solve the multi-objective mould better coverage in the Pareto front. Further details about NSGA
planning problems in precast production. The NWGA combines and NSGA-II can be found in Srinivas and Deb (1994) and Deb et
the multiple objective functions into a scalar fitness value and this al. (2002). It is very likely the NSGA is capable of directly search-
simple GA is very easy to be used. There are a number of more ing for non-dominated solutions converging to the Pareto optimal
recent successful applications of the non-dominated sorting GA solution front with much less computational effort.
(NSGA) approach (Srinivas & Deb 1994), which is one of the
alternatives to the NWGA, for solving multi-objective optimisa- Conclusion
tion problems, including planning and scheduling. The primary
difference between the simple GA and NSGA lies in how fitness Mould planning was included into precast production schedul-
values are assigned. Fitness assignment in the NSGA requires two ing problem cast as a Flow Shop Sequencing Model in this paper.
steps: (1) classification to a non-domination front and (2) sharing Mould usage minimizing and levelling problems were defined
(or nicheing). Deb et al. (2002) further developed the NSGA-II based on the concept of mould usage profile. Inclusion of mould
that uses an elite-preservation strategy that can provide a fast non- planning into scheduling models is of practical value to precasters
dominated sorting. It also uses an explicit diversity-preserving in making schedules that are feasible for execution. Total mould
mechanism, a crowded tournament selection operator, to get a usage and individual mould group usage were optimized separately
31

Table 3: Results of different delays of the start time of given elements

Mould usage Make-span Tardiness penalty

Type (1) Type (2) Type (3) Type (4) Type (5) Type (6) Total
Original schedule 5 4 4 2 6 4 25 174.1 0.0
Delay element 26
5 3 4 2 5 4 23 174.1 0.0
0.2 hrs
32
Delay element 26
0.2 hrs then delay 4 3 4 2 5 4 22 174.1 0.0
element 4 1.8 hrs
Delay element 26
5 3 4 2 5 4 23 193.4 167.0
2.2 hrs

33
Hao Hu Resource Planning for Precast Production 113

Table 4: Results of mould usage optimization using the GA approach.

Tardiness
Mould usage Makespan
Objectives penalty(units)
(hrs)
Total Type 1 Type 2 Type 3 Type 4 Type 5 Type 6
21 5 4 1 3 3 5 193.4 6112.0
Min. total mould usage
21 4 3 1 2 5 6 193.0 5761.5
Min. mould type (1) 27 1 2 3 2 6 9 192.9 5976.5
Min. mould type (2) 30 6 1 3 4 6 10 193.1 5925.0
Min. mould type (3) 31 6 4 1 4 6 10 174.7 6154.5
Min. mould type (4) 31 5 8 3 1 5 9 176.2 6479.5
Min. mould type (5) 26 5 5 4 3 1 8 175.9 6203.5
Min. mould type (6) 26 5 7 4 3 6 1 175.2 5212.5
Min. total mould usage and 21 3 3 3 2 3 7 172.6 3730.0
makespan 21 7 5 2 1 3 3 172.1 6632.5
Min. total mould usage and 21 6 1 3 2 2 7 172.6 362.0
tardiness penalty 21 4 2 3 2 4 7 173.4 229.0
Min. mould usage, make-span 22 1 6 3 4 5 3 172.6 771.0
& tardiness penalty 23 5 3 2 3 5 5 172.9 273.0

(GA Parameters: Population size: 200; Iteration times: 200; Crossover probability: 0.85; Mutation probability: 0.05)

as well as simultaneously with other objectives using GA/NWGA
approaches. The results show that GA can obtain optimal or near
optimal results evaluated by the setting objectives.
The main contribution of this paper is in extending previ-
ous research on optimising scheduling, based on makespan and
tardiness objectives, to include also mould usage. The original
contributions in the paper are thus in formulating an objective
function for mould usage, providing an algorithm for evaluating
this function for a given schedule, and then solving the optimisa-
tion problem for both single and multiple objectives subject to
a number of constraints.
Mould allocation is another aspect of mould planning, which
aims to construct an optimal schedule under given mould availabil-
ity. This problem will be studied in the subsequent research.
Acknowledgements
The author is appreciative to Assoc. Prof. Chan Weng Tat, National
University of Singapore for discussions and suggestions and the Precast
Technology Centre of the Housing & Development Board, Singapore for
support of this research. The author gratefully acknowledges the valuable
comments and suggestions of the two anonymous referees.
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