International Journal of Production Research

ISSN: 0020-7543 (Print) 1366-588X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tprs20

A modified multi-objective genetic algorithm for

two-sided assembly line re-balancing problem of a
shovel loader

Yahui Zhang, Xiaofeng Hu & Chuanxun Wu

To cite this article: Yahui Zhang, Xiaofeng Hu & Chuanxun Wu (2017): A modified multi-objective
genetic algorithm for two-sided assembly line re-balancing problem of a shovel loader, International
Journal of Production Research, DOI: 10.1080/00207543.2017.1402136

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2017.1402136

Published online: 24 Nov 2017.

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 International Journal of Production Research, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2017.1402136

A modified multi-objective genetic algorithm for two-sided assembly line re-balancing problem
of a shovel loader
Yahui Zhang, Xiaofeng Hu* and Chuanxun Wu

Institute of Intelligent Manufacturing and Information Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong
University, Shanghai, China
(Received 28 November 2016; accepted 31 October 2017)

This article deals with a real-life multi-objective two-sided assembly line rebalancing problem (MTALRBP) with modifi-
cations of production demand, line’s structure and production process in a Chinese construction machinery manufactur-
ing firm. The objectives are minimising the cycle time and rebalancing cost, considering some specific constraints
associated with the inevitable wait time, such as novel cycle time, idle time and balanced constraints. A modified non-
Downloaded by [University of Florida] at 03:14 26 November 2017

dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (MNSGA-II) is proposed to solve this problem. MNSGA-II employs some prob-
lem-specific designs for encoding and decoding, initial population, crossover operator, mutation operator and selection
operator. The great performance of MNSGA-II is demonstrated from two aspects: one is through the comparison
between the representative results and current situation in the production system in terms of some ALs’ performance
evaluation index, the other is utilising the comparison between the proposed MNSGA-II and two versions of initial
NSGA-II in terms of ratio, convergence and spread.
Keywords: two-sided assembly line rebalancing; MNSGA-II; multi-objective; multiple constraints; a shovel loader
assembly line

1. Introduction
Shovel loader is a type of construction equipment machinery and widely used in infrastructure and public facilities con-
struction. Assembly is the last and most important link for the production of shovel loaders. Assembly line (AL) of sho-
vel loaders is a typical two-sided line as shown in Figure 1, operators work in parallel on the two sides (left side (L)
and right side (R)) of the conveyor belt, and a pair of stations (e.g. stations 3 and 4) on the two sides is called as a
mated-station or a workstation, and each one is called a companion for the other. Compared with one-sided ALs, it has
several advantages: shorter line length, reduced throughput time, lower cost of tools and fixtures and less material han-
dling (Bartholdi 1993).
At present, there are many researches focused on two-sided assembly line balancing problems (TALBPs) (Make,
Rashid, and Razali 2017). TALBPs can be classified as two versions (Lee, Kim, and Kim 2001): type I (TALBP-I) is
minimising stations’ number with a given cycle time; type II (TALBP-II) is minimising cycle time, while the number of
stations is predetermined. As summarised in Table 1, most of current researches focused on TALBP-I and its extensions,
which are suitable for a new yet-to-be-built assembly line (Purnomo, Wee, and Rau 2013). However, driven by changes
of customer demand, core technology and market competition, ALs’ balance is destroyed constantly, product and tech-
nics even need to upgrade. Obviously, ALs balancing is usually conducted on reconfigured lines instead of first installed
lines in the real world (Falkenauer 2005). However, although TALBP-II is suitable for reconfigured ALs (Purnomo,
Wee, and Rau 2013), it does not consider changes of processes or rebalancing cost (Gamberini, Grassi, and Rimini
2006; Makssoud et al. 2015).
In recent years, assembly line rebalancing problems (ALRBPs) have been mentioned by some researchers, but
related researches are limited. Gamberini, Grassi, and Rimini (2006) proposed a multi-criteria single-pass heuristic algo-
rithm based on TOPSIS to deal with the single-model and one-sided manual ALRBP, where operators should be
retrained to perform new tasks from new assembly process. The objectives were minimising the expected completion
costs and maximising the degree of similarity between initial balanced line and rebalanced line. The latter was taken as
the measurement of rebalancing cost. Then, Gamberini et al. (2009) did an extended research. Grangeon, Leclaire, and
Norre (2011) proposed a heuristics sequencing approach based on operations’ transfer for a vehicle assembly line

*Corresponding author. Email: wshxf@sjtu.edu.cn

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

 2 Y. Zhang et al.

Workstation
(mated-station)

Workstation 1 Workstation 2 Workstation n

Left side(L) Station 1 Station 3 Station 2n-1

conveyor belt

Right side(R) Station 2 Station 4 Station 2n

Figure 1. Two-sided assembly line.

Table 1. Publications related with TALBPs.

Type of problems References

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Simple TALBP-I Bartholdi (1993), Hu, Wu, and Jin (2008), Wu et al. (2008), Hu et al. (2010), Yang, Zhang, and
Zhu (2016)
TALBP-I with additional Kim, Kim, and Kim (2000), Baykasoglu and Dereli (2008), Özcan and Toklu (2009a), Özcan
constraintsa (2010), Özcan and Toklu (2010a), Özbakır and Tapkan (2011), Tapkan, Ozbakir, and
Baykasoglu (2012b), Wang et al. (2014), Yuan, Zhang, and Shao (2015), Chiang, Urban, and
Luo (2016), Tang et al. (2017)
TALBP-I with novel objectivesb Lee, Kim, and Kim (2001), Özcan and Toklu (2009b), Chutima and Chimklai (2012), Li, Tang,
and Zhang (2017)
TALBP-I with additional Khorasanian, Hejazi, and Moslehi (2013), Purnomo and Wee (2014), Tuncel and Aydin (2014),
constraints and novel objectives Li et al. (2014)
Fuzzy TALBP-I Özbakır and Tapkan (2010b), Tapkan, Özbakır, and Baykasoğlu (2012a)
Mixed-Model TALBP-I Özcan and Toklu (2009c), Simaria and Vilarinho (2009), Yuan et al. (2015), Buyukozkan et al.
(2016), Yılmaz et al. (2017)
Parallel TALBP-I Özcan, Gökçen, and Toklu (2010), Kucukkoc and Zhang (2015), Ağpak and Zolfaghari (2015),
Tapkan, Özbakır, and Baykasoğlu (2016)
Mixed-Model parallel TALBP-I Kucukkoc and Zhang (2016)
TALBP-II General Lee, Kim, and Kim (2001), Kim, Song, and Kim (2009), Purnomo, Wee, and Rau (2013),
Zhang, Hu, and Cheng (2014), Tang, Li, and Zhang (2016), Lei and Guo (2016)
Parallel Ağpak and Zolfaghari (2015), Sepahi and Naini (2016)
Additional Li, Tang, and Zhang (2016)
constraints
a
Additional constraints include stochastic, zoning constraints, positional constraints and synchronous task constraints, and etc.
b
Novel objectives include maximising work relatedness, work slackness, and line efficiency, minimising workload smoothness and etc.

rebalancing problem to minimise the number of stations, and maximise the load smoothing gradually. The number of
moved tasks was applied to account the rebalancing cost. Yang, Gao, and Sun (2013) studied a mixed-model assembly
line (MAL) rebalancing problem, considering the demand structure changes with seasonal shifts. A multi-objective
genetic algorithm was designed to solve it to minimise the number of stations, workload variations at each station for
different models and rebalancing costs. The total processing time of reassigned tasks was utilised to measure rebalancing
cost. Makssoud, Battaïa, and Dolgui (2013); Makssoud et al. (2015) developed an exact algorithm for small-scale
ALRBPs with the objective of minimising the number of modifications in the rebalanced line, and the number of moved
tasks was also applied to measure the rebalancing cost. Celik, Kara, and Atasagun (2014) proposed an ant colony opti-
misation algorithm for U-lines rebalancing problem with stochastic task times, and the objective was to minimise total
rebalancing cost which contains task transposition costs, workstation opening/closing costs and operating costs of work-
stations in a particular planning horizon. In addition, there are other studies which did not consider rebalancing costs
(Ağpak 2010; Rahman 2010; Oliveira et al. 2012; Antoine et al. 2014; Sikora, Lopes, and Magatão 2017). However, to
the best of our knowledge, there are no published papers for two-sided assembly line rebalancing problems (TALRBPs)
so far.
 International Journal of Production Research 3

This paper deals with a multi-objective TALRBP of a shovel loader, which is the urgent problem of a Chinese con-
struction machinery manufacturing company named SDLG. In this problem, simple tasks reassignment is no longer able
to meet the increasing market demand. Thus, we design a rebalancing algorithm to achieve tasks’ reassignment based
on the process optimisation. The aim is to modify an existing balanced line to achieve the novel production targets
using minimum cycle time and rebalancing cost. The considered constraints are composed of basic and some specific
constraints related to inevitable wait time, such as novel cycle time, idle time and balanced constraints. A modified non-
dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (MNSGA-II) is proposed. It contains some original problem-specific designs for
encoding and decoding, determination of initial population, crossover, mutation and selection. The performance of
MNSGA-II is tested from two aspects: (1) the comparison of six representative rebalancing solutions and current bal-
anced solution of production system; (2) the comparison between the proposed MNSGA-II and two versions of initial
NSGA-II. To the best of our knowledge, few researches dealt with multi-objective two-sided assembly line rebalancing
problems (MTALRBPs) and this is the first time the proposed algorithm has been applied to solve MTALRBPs.
In the next section, we present the rebalancing problem of an industrial system. The problem-specific designed algo-
rithm for the MTALRBPs is described in Section 3, results and discussions are presented in Sections 4 and 5 provides
the conclusion and future research.
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2. Rebalancing problem
The notations used in this paper are as follows:

i,l,v a task
j,p a workstation
M the total number of tasks
N the total number of workstations
I set of tasks, I={1, 2, . . ., i, . . ., M}
J workstations (mated-stations), J = {1, 2, . . ., j, . . ., N}
(j,k) a station of mated-station j and its operation direction k. k = 1, indicates a left station; k = 2, indicates a right station.
k′ the opposite side of k, i.e. k′ = 2, while k = 1 and vice versa
ti processing time of task i.
D(i) the preferred direction of task i, D(i)= L,R or E
Ct(j,k) completion time of station (j,k)
Ct(j, k′) completion time of station( j,k′)
Ct(j) completion time of workstation j
Sjk set of tasks assigned to station (j,k)
Sjk 0 set of tasks assigned to station (j,k′)
Sj Set of tasks assigned to workstation j
x0ijk 1, if task i is assigned to station (j,k) in the initial balancing; 0, otherwise.
y0ij 1, if task i is assigned to workstation j in the initial balancing; 0, otherwise.
xijk 1, if task i is assigned to station (j,k); 0, otherwise.
yij 1, if task i is assigned to workstation j; 0, otherwise.
ct Cycle time
RC rebalancing costs P
UITAL upper bound of idle time allowed by an AL, UITAL = 2N  ct  M Pti
i¼1
UITW Upper bound of idle time allowed by a workstation, UITW = 2  ct  i2Sj ti
θ, σ small positive integers
φ, δ coefficient for the number of tasks transfer between and within workstations, which are decided by the manager

Other notations will be defined as needed.

2.1 Description of SDLG ZL50F shovel loader assembly line

The assembly line of SDLG ZL50F shovel loader is composed of 78 tasks and 8 workstations. Every task has a pre-
ferred operation direction (e.g. left, right or either side) and a given operation time. Precedence diagram of tasks is
deterministic in both initial and reconfigured lines. Meanwhile, each task can only be assigned to one station and the
processing time of each task and the position where the task assigned to are independent of the assigned station. Tasks
reassignment is subject to the precedence and operation direction restriction. To focus on key factors, we just consider
one product one model and do not consider the influence of operators’ travel times, work-in-process (WIP) inventory,
operators’ preference with tasks or workstations and parallel station (Özcan 2010).
 4 Y. Zhang et al.

Figure 2 illustrates the precedence diagram of tasks, each task is associated with a label (D(i), ti). Initial balanced
solution with a cycle time of 1386 s according to current assembly line layout is shown in Figure 3. The white rectan-
gles represent tasks assigned to relevant stations and their numbers are placed on them. For each task, its start time and
finish time are shown alongside the bars. The shaded rectangles indicate idle time. The shaded rectangles between two
tasks are the inevitable wait time. Take workstation1 for example, tasks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are assigned to left station of
workstation1, while tasks 9, 7, 8, 10, 11 and 12 are assigned to right station. At this time, for task 1, x0111 = 1 and
y011 = 1; for task 9, x0912 = 1 and y091 = 1; … and so on. Since task1 is an immediate predecessor of task 9, i.e. task 9 can
only be executed after task 1 is finished. Thus, there are 62 (inevitable) idle time at the first position of right station and
task 9′ start time is 62 and finish time is 112.

2.2 Rebalancing problem of SDLG ZL50F shovel loader assembly line

2.2.1 Problems of initial balance line
As shown in Figure 3, there are two obvious issues in the initial balanced line: gap between the maximum and mini-
mum completion time of a station is large; idle time in each station and some stations even have a lot of idle time. After
a thorough analysis, we find the main reasons below.
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(1) Unreasonable tasks assignments

Take workstation 5R (Figure 3), for example, it has been assigned two tasks (46 and 48). Although the sum of oper-
ation time of them is not large, Ct (5R) is large. Since starting time of task 46 is delayed due to its immediate predeces-
sor task 45 on the mated-station. Meanwhile, task 46 is an immediate predecessor of task 48. Eventually, it results in a
lot of idle time on station 5R and Ct (5R) becomes longer.

Figure 2. Initial precedence diagram of tasks of ZL50F shovel loader.

 International Journal of Production Research 5

0 62 393 666 966 1307 1362

L 1 2 3 4 5 6
Workstation 1 0 62 112 312 357 447 666 962 1047
R 9 7 8 10 11 12

0 60 131 217 300 381 445 541 745 993

L 13 14 15 16 17 21 22 23 29
Workstation 2 0 193 506 666 876
R 18 19 20 28

0 178 298 347 393 475 794 898 925 1015

L 24 25 26 27 32 35 36 37
Workstation 3 0 393 475 756 1212
R 30 31 33

0 123 386 446 779 1014

L 34 38 39 43
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Workstation 4 0 210 446 779 988

R 40 41 42

0 513 794 1153 1283

L 44 45 47
Workstation 5 0 794 1153 1283
R 46 48

0 55 85 745 780 907 971

L 49 50 51 52 53 56
Workstation 6 0 569 1076
R 54 55

0 366 690 1137

L 57 58 62
Workstation 7 0 568 690 870 1386
R 61 59 60

0 250 490 920

L 63 67
Workstation 8 0 250 500 740 1100
R 65 66 68 64

Figure 3. Initial balanced solution of ZL50F shovel loader AL.

(2) Unreasonable stations layout

In ZL50F shovel loader AL, task 24 is assigned to station 3L, task 46 is installed on station 5R. It means 16 tasks
between them (tasks 26–45) must be assigned to stations 3R to 5L. Considering precedence relationship of these tasks,
the assignment scheme is limited and they almost have to process in a serial way, which blocks cycle time optimisation.
(3) Unreasonable tasks separation
In an AL, a task is referred as the smallest operation unit. In our case, there are some big tasks, such as task 51
(660 s), task 54 (569 s), task 61 (568 s) and so on. In industrial practices, it is general to decrease operation time of big
tasks through increasing operators or equipment (work in parallel or to reduce the auxiliary and set-up time). However,
it is not appropriate for some special tasks. Take task 51, for example, heater and toolbox installation must work in the
cab, where space is too small to contain more than one operator. Therefore, we need to divide these big tasks into small
ones or reduce operation time of those tasks based on process mechanism and technology support.
 6 Y. Zhang et al.

2.2.2 The optimisation of initial balance line

Obviously, in order to increase productivity, we should optimise processes before reassigning tasks, like task separation,
task combination, task deletion, task addition or reducing tasks’ operation time using novel technologies. Eventually,
based on the above-mentioned issues, as well as characteristics of each task, production resources (equipment, technol-
ogy and workers, etc.), current level of process and technology in the company and the assembly work instructions, pri-
oritisation scheme are shown in Table 2, new precedence diagram of tasks is shown in Figure 4.

Table 2. Tasks adjusted information.

Adjustment item Adjustment content

Before After
Task Operation Operation Task Operation Operation
No. Task content direction time (s) No. Task content direction time (s)
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Rear rotating Rear rotating

33 shaft installation E 456 33 shaft installation E 336
Tests before
69 rotating shaft E 120
installation
Front rotating Front rotating
62 shaft installation E 447 62 shaft installation E 327
Engine oil tank
70 brace installation L 180
Engine oil tank
44 installation L 513 Engine oil tank
44 installation L 333
(A) tasks Heater
Heater and 51 installation E 420
separation
51 toolbox E 660 Toolbox
installation 71 installation E 120
Left Tyres
Tyres 54 installation L 250
54 installation E 569 Right Tyres
72 installation R 250
Dashboard base
Dashboard 73 installation E 220
55 installation E 507 Dashboard
55 installation E 287
Installation of left
60 platforms L 258
Installation of with shield
60 left and right E 516 Installation of
platforms with 74 right platforms R 258
shield with shield
Diesel and drive 67 Diesel filling E 260
67 oil filling E 430 76 Drive oil filling E 170
Before After

Air tank
(B) Tasks 24 installation E 178
Air tank and pipe
combination Air pipe 24 installation E 240
25 installation E 120
(C) Tasks deletion Move task10 (Rear light assembly) from AL to a related subassembly line.
(D) Tasks addition Add new task 77 (Front axle oil pipe connection and exhaust nozzle installation, 210s) on the AL.
(E) Modified (1) Operation time of task19(Oil inlet and return pipes installation) from 313s down to 200s；
operation time (2) Operation time of task 45(Oil pipe connection) from 280s down to 240s.
 International Journal of Production Research 7
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Figure 4. New precedence diagram of tasks of ZL50F shovel loader.

2.2.3 Formulation for ZL50F shovel loader assembly line rebalancing problem
For a task pair (i, v) of a two-sided AL, suppose task v is an immediate predecessor of task i and task i is assigned to
station p, v is assigned to the companion of p, then task i can only be executed after task v is finished. Thus, there is
inevitable wait time may exist between tasks assigned to the same station. We use IWTi to express the inevitable wait
time caused by task i, which exists in the opposite side of the station where task i is assigned to. In order to improve
the AL efficiency, additional constraints related IWTi are proposed.
( )
X
IWTi ¼ max 0; ti  tl (1)
l2MTi

where MTi represents the set of matched tasks of task i, which do not have precedence relationship with i and can be
assigned to different operation direction of i.
As shown in Figure 2, assume task i is 34, then MT34 = f 31, 32, 35, 36, 37,40; 33; 62g. We can see from Figure 3,
tasks {34, 38, 39, 43} are assigned to L station of workstation 5, while tasks {40, 41, 42} are assigned to R station of
workstation 5. Obviously, there is only one matched task of task 34 contained in the R side, i.e. task 40. At this time,
IWT34 = max {0, 123–210} = 0, i.e. there is no inevitable wait time in the R side of workstation 5 caused by task 34.
(1) New cycle time constraints
New cycle time constraints guarantee completion time of one workstation, which contains inevitable wait time, is
less than cycle time.
CtðjÞ  ct; 8j 2 J (2)

CtðjÞ ¼ maxfCtðj; kÞ; Ctðj; k 0 Þg; 8j 2 J ; k = 1; k 0 ¼ 2 or k = 2; k 0 ¼ 1 (3)

 8 Y. Zhang et al.
X X
Ctðj; kÞ ¼ ti þ IWTu ; 8j 2 J ; k = 1; k 0 ¼ 2 or k = 2; k 0 ¼ 1 (4)
i2Sjk u2Sjk 0

X X
Ctðj; k 0 Þ ¼ tu þ IWTi ; 8j 2 J ; k = 1; k 0 ¼ 2 or k = 2; k 0 ¼ 1 (5)
u2Sjk 0 i2Sjk

(2) Idle time constraints

Inevitable wait time prevents the improvement of line efficiency, thus, we provide the upper bounds for idle time
allowed by an AL (UITAL) and a workstation (UITW), respectively. As shown in Equation (6) and (7).
0 1
X X X
@ IWTi þ IWTu A  UITAL; k = 1; k 0 ¼ 2 or k = 2; k 0 ¼ 1 (6)
j2J i2Sjk u2Sjk 0

X X
IWTi þ IWTu  UITW ; 8j 2 J ; k = 1; k 0 ¼ 2 or k = 2; k 0 ¼ 1 (7)
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i2Sjk u2Sjk 0

(3) Balanced constraints

Balancing completion time between and within workstations helps uniform idle time distribution and makes contri-
bution to reduce cycle time and improve line efficiency. Equation (8) aims to control the gap between maximum and
minimum completion time of stations, Equation (9) is to balance completion time of both sides of a workstation.
maxfCtðj; kÞg  minfCtðj; kÞg  h; k = 1; k 0 ¼ 2 or k = 2; k 0 ¼ 1 (8)
j2J j2J

jðCtðj; kÞ  Ctðj; k 0 Þj  r; 8j 2 J ; k = 1; k 0 ¼ 2 or k = 2; k 0 ¼ 1 (9)

As mentioned above, the remarkable feature of ALRBPs is tasks’ reassignment, which will inevitably bring rebalancing
cost. However, reducing cost is one of core goals pursued by enterprises. Thus, the objectives are minimising the cycle
time and rebalancing cost. In this article, rebalancing cost is measured by the amount of tasks’ reassignment between
and within workstations. Eventually, the objective functions are formulated as:

Min ct (10)

X X  

2 
XXX 
 
 


Min RC ¼ / yij  y0ij  þ d xijk  x0ijk   yij  y0ij  (11)
i2I j2J i2I j2J k¼1

3. The proposed algorithm

Considering characteristics of our problem, we designed a novel heuristic algorithm based on NSGA-II, which can be
referred to as MNSGA-II. It employs some problem-specific designs for encoding and decoding, initial population,
crossover operator, mutation operator and selection operator.

3.1 Encoding and decoding

(1) Encoding
A workstation-oriented encoding scheme is proposed, where a chromosome is a string of length M, and each gene repre-
sents the number of workstation the task is assigned to. For example, if the encoded number of 3rd gene is 1, it repre-
sents task 3 is assigned to workstation 1. Figure 5(a)–(c) show an example of the benchmark instance P24 (Kim, Kim,
and Kim 2000).
 International Journal of Production Research 9
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Figure 5. An example of encoding and crossover operator for P24.

(2) Decoding
A heuristic decoding method, which can be called single workstation tasks’ assignment procedure (SWTAP) is
designed to guide tasks’ assignment of each single workstation.
Step1. Select a workstation j and record tasks moved into (that did not contain in j in the initial solution).
Step2. Get potential tasks’ exchange solutions (PTES), i.e. the schemes of tasks shifted between left and right sides
of j, and sort them in a deceasing order of the number of exchange tasks.
Take workstation 1 of Figure 5(b), for example, there are three E-type tasks (10, 6, 8), then the set of PTES contains
seven solutions in the order of {10}, {6}, {8}, {10, 6}, {10, 8}, {6, 8} and {10, 6, 8}. The first solution {10}
 10 Y. Zhang et al.

represents shifting task 10 from the left station to right station, i.e. at this time, the solution of workstation 1 is assign-
ing tasks {1, 2, 11, 5} to the left station and tasks {3, 4, 7, 6, 8, 10} to the right station.
Step3. Select the first solution h of PTES, mark tasks of left station as L, tasks of right station as R, get assignment
sequence of tasks according to weights and related rules, gradually.

Weight 1: ti * ((the number of its immediate successors on j) + 1). Rank all the tasks according weight 1 in a
descending order.
Weight 2: Task ID. Rank all the remaining tasks according to weight 2 in an ascending order.
Weight 3: The number of MTi . Rank all the tasks according to weight 3 in an ascending order.
Weight 4: Random.

Step4. Assign tasks sequentially, calculate Ct (j) and idle time between tasks each time after assigning a task. If the
idle time exceeds MITALAP and MITCWAP, enumerate 100 times in a small range to reduce idle time. If the
idle time still exceeds MITALAP and MITCWAP, delete solution h from PTES and go back to Step3;
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otherwise, go to Step5.

MITALAP The maximum idle time allowed by AL at present

MITCWAP The maximum idle time allowed by current workstation at present

X
j1
MITALAP ¼ UITAL  Idlep (12)
p¼1

X
MITCWAP ¼ 2  Tct  ðti þ IWTi Þ (13)
i2Sj
PM
where Idlep means the total idle time contained in workstation p; Tct means target ct, Tct = i¼1 ti =ð2N  1Þ.
Step5. If Ct (j) is greater than Tct, delete solution h from PTES and go back to Step3; otherwise, save it as a feasi-
ble solution for workstation j, and go to the next workstation until assigning all the tasks.

3.2 Initial population and fitness evaluation

Two methods are used to generate the initial population: mutated method (10%) and heuristic rules method (90%).
Mutated method is to generate some variations of initial balanced solution utilising the mutation operator (Section 3.4).
Heuristic rules method based on the heuristic priority rules (Gonçalves and de Almeida 2002) is as follows:
Step1. Build set RS which is composed of tasks needed to be assigned, and select tasks which do not have prede-
cessors or all the predecessors have been assigned to constitute set RC.
Step2. Rank tasks of set RC according to weights.

① operation time of task, rank tasks in a descending order of their operation time.
② number of successors, rank tasks in a descending order of their successors.
③ number of immediate successors, rank tasks in a descending order of their immediate successors.
④ task ID, rank tasks in an ascending order of their ID.
⑤ random.
 International Journal of Production Research 11

Step3. Assign tasks to the earliest workstation j (they can be assigned to) in order. If they are not E-type, assign
them to their preferred (L or R) side; otherwise, assign them to the side which has less completion time.
Step4. If Ct (j) is greater than Cd, go to the next workstation j + 1. If Ct (j + 1) is still greater than Cd, assign them
to a workstation of which the completion time is the closest to Cd.
P
Cd represents the theoretical average cycle time of initial balanced line, Cd ¼ M i¼1 ti =ð2NÞ.
In this paper, the fitness function is defined as the reverse form of the objective functions, because the traditional
genetic algorithm is designed for the maximum problems where the greater the fitness function, the better the solution.

3.3. Crossover operator

Step1. Generate a random integer h from [0.1M, 0.9M].
Step2. Build a set L which contains h different and random integers from [1, M].
Step3. The genes of parent P1 which are not contained in L are copied into the same position in offspring O1.
Step4. Compare the genes of parent P1 which are contained in L with the same positions of parent P2. If the value
of a gene is tied, copy it into the same positions in offspring O1; otherwise, empty (marked with #) the corre-
sponding positions in offspring O1 and record the related tasks in set RS.
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Step5. Assign tasks which are not yet assigned using a procedure of heuristic rule named improved best-fit decreas-
ing (IBFD, Khuri, Schütz, and Heitkötter 1995), as described below.
Step5.1. Create sets RS, RC, and identify RSj, RCj of current workstation j.
Step5.2. Get workstation section [mini, maxi] where tasks of RCj can be assigned to, calculate Zi (Zi = maxi – mini).
Step5.3. If Zi = 0, assign i to mini; otherwise, rank tasks under rules, in the order of ① in ascending order of Z; ②
in a descending order of their operation time; ③ random.
Step5.4. Assign tasks to j one by one, and calculate Ct (j). If Ct (j) > aCT, withdraw the assignment and assign
next task. Repeat it until assigning the last task. PN
aCT is average cycle time of parent P1, aCT = j¼1 Ct(j)=N .
Step5.5. If tasks of RCj are not empty, add them to RCj+1 and assign them to next workstation. If the tasks of RCj+1
are not empty in the end, assign them to a workstation which has the least completion time.
Take P24 as example, assume h = 0.5 M = 12, L={1, 4, 5, 8, 11, 13, 14, 17, 19, 21, 23, 24}, child O1 is created as
shown in Figure 5(d) step1. Then tasks which are not yet assigned (marked with #) are assigned using IBFD, Figure 5(d)
step2 is the eventual structure of O1.
Offspring O2 can be generated by reversing the roles of parents P1 and P2.
In order to restrict crossover of similar individuals, we propose the formulation of similarity (S) and a certain thresh-
old (W). If the similarity of two individuals is less than threshold W, they cross directly. Otherwise, they can cross with
a random one-third probability and reduce one time of crossover.
S ¼ Count=M (14)

pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
W ¼ 0:7 þ 0:25 g=G (15)
where Count is the number of the same genes of two individuals; g represents current generation iteratively; G is the
total generations sited in the initial population.

3.4 Mutation operator

To avoid getting into local optimum prematurely, we first select some chromosomes randomly with an dynamic individ-
ual mutation rate P(m,g), then choose some genes of the individuals to mutate with a certain gene mutation rate Pg, and
get them together as set RS and create set RC. The followed steps are the same with steps of IBFD.
G
Pðm;gÞ ¼  Pm (16)
Gþg
where Pm represents the initial individual mutation rate.
 12 Y. Zhang et al.

3.5 Selection operator

Although the excellent performance of tournament selection operator based on the non-dominated sorting and crowded
comparison operator has been tested in literature (Ahmadi et al. 2016; Dou, Li, and Su 2016), tournament selection
operator and the related elitism strategy may result in reproducing elites rapidly (Han et al. 2014). Therefore, we pro-
pose the following two improved methods.
(1) Improved selection mechanism
Proportional selection is combined with tournament selection method. First, choosing a certain percentage nq
(Equation (17)) of dominant individuals from each front of parent P to form offspring population O. Secondly, using
tournament selection to get the other offspring from parent P until the population size of offspring population O reaches
Nu.
nq ¼ k  Nq ; q ¼ 1; 2; . . .Q (17)
where Q is the total number of non-dominated levels, q is a non-dominated level. Nq indicates the total number of indi-
viduals in rank q, k is a proportionality factor.
ðk2  k1 Þg
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k ¼ k1 þ ; k1 ; k2 2 ð0; 0:5Þ; and k1 [ k2 (18)

G

(2) Eliminate duplicates mechanism approach

To improve the convergence of the algorithm and preserve the elitism in the process of evolution (Liu et al. 2014),
NSGA-II (Deb et al. 2002) first form the combined population Kg (Kg = Pg U Og). Then, the fast non-dominated sorting
approach and crowding distance calculation (as shown in Appendix 1) are used again to get non-domination levels of
individuals. Eventually, the top Nu individuals based on tournament selection factor are chosen to create the new parent
Pg+1. Although it is fast and effective, it will result in many duplicated individuals. Aiming to eliminate duplicates
before sorting individuals of Kg, the duplicates are mutated firstly using mutation operator. If there are still duplicated
individuals, they are deleted directly.

4. Results and discussions

4.1 Implementation of the MNSGA-II
The parameters of MNSGA-II are determined through preliminary experiments. We first get the range of parameters’
values according to experience, then we search the optimal parameters in the range by trial and error. When a parameter
is observed, only this parameter’s value can change and the other parameters are set at the same values each time. Even-
tually, the population size (Nu) is designed as 400, the maximum number of generations (G) is 300, crossover rate is
0.8, Pm is 0.15, Pg is 0.12. k1 = 0.4, k2 = 0.1 and tournament size = 2. φ = 2, δ = 1 and θ = 3, σ = 3, respectively. The
MNSGA-II is programmed in C# language with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015, and executed on a PC with Intel Core
(TM) i5-4570, 3.20 GHz, 8 G RAM. The algorithm is run 10 times, and the Pareto frontier of each run is collected.
Eventually, Pareto frontiers with different number of workstations obtained by MNSGA-II are shown in Figure 6.

1400 S l7
1300
S l9
1200 S l8
cycle time

1100 S r7 7 workstations
8 workstations
1000 S r8
9 workstations
900 S r9

800
40 50 60 70 80 90 100
rebalancing cost

Figure 6. The Pareto frontier with different workstation numbers.

 International Journal of Production Research 13

Figure 6 shows the Pareto frontier moves from the left corner of the graph towards the bottom right corner of the
graph. Obviously, the solution on the right corner has a minimum cycle time and a maximum rebalancing cost, while
the solution on the left corner is the opposite. Therefore, they can represent all the solutions interval of Pareto frontier.
Two solutions with different number of workstations is marked as Srz and Slz, respectively, r and l represent the position
in the graph and z is the number of workstations contained in the solution. Based on the trait of our rebalancing prob-
lem, the reasonable and appropriate values of z are 7, 8 and 9.

4.2 Performance of the proposed algorithm

The performance comparison and analysis are conducted from two aspects to verify the efficiency and superiority of the
proposed algorithm in terms of some ALs’ performance evaluation index (e.g. cycle time, line efficiency and so on) and
Pareto optimal comparison metrics (ratio convergence and spread), respectively. First, the solutions obtained by
MNSGA-II are compared with current line balance in the production system. Second, two versions of initial NSGA-II
are developed to solve the same problem for comparing the performance of the proposed MNSGA-II.

4.2.1 Performance comparison of rebalanced line and initial balanced line

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To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, six representative solutions Srz and Slz (z = 7, 8, 9) are chosen
to be compared with current balanced line in terms of cycle time, rebalancing cost and some general performance crite-
ria of ALs as follows.
(1) Line efficiency (LE)
The higher the LE means that the greater the production rate of ALs (when the workstation number is fixed), since
the idle time decreases with the increase of LE.
PM
ti
LE ¼ i¼1  100% (19)
2N  ct

(2) Smoothness index (SI)

SI is used to measure the workload (the total operation time of tasks on a station) balance between workstations of
ALs. A smaller SI means the AL is smoother and the workload of stations is more balanced.

vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
,
u
uX X 2
SI ¼ t ðSTmax  STjk Þ 2
ð2N Þ (20)
j2J k¼1
P
where STjk ¼
  jk ti , represents the total operation time of tasks which are assigned to station (j,k);
i2S
STmax = max STjk , is the maximum workload of all the stations.
(3) Completion time smoothness index (CSI)
Cycle time of an AL is determined by the longest completion time of stations. However, differing from one-sided
AL, the completion time of a station is not always equal to the workload of a station in two-sided AL due to the inevi-
table wait time. Thus, it is inappropriate to assess balance of two-sided ALs just using SI.
Referring to the definition of SI, the completion time smoothness index (CSI) of two-sided ALs is defined as shown
in Equation (21). Obviously, the smoother CSI is, the more stable and reliable the assembly line is.
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
, ffi
u
uX X 2
CSI ¼ t ðCtmax  Ctðj; kÞÞ2 ð2N Þ (21)
j2J k¼1

where Ctmax = maxfCt(j,k)g, is the maximum completion time of all the stations.
(4) Monthly production capacity (PC/m)
For an AL, one of the most important factors is the production capacity. Thus, we use monthly production capacity
(PC/m) as a performance measure of ALs. PC/m is equal to the total work time of a month divided by cycle time.
 14 Y. Zhang et al.

Eventually, the detailed results of PC/m along with results of LE, SI and CSI are summarised in Table 3. All the
results are listed according to the number of workstations used and we do not directly analyse the merits and demerits
between them. The computational time is the average time of 10 runs. Obviously, the time is slightly longer because of
some special designs in the proposed algorithm.
Obviously, we can get some conclusions from Table 3: (1) Due to the modification of the production demand, line
structure and production process, tasks may transfer between and within workstations to get rebalance. Especially, the
modification of line structure, i.e. adding or removing workstations, will result in a greater number of tasks reassign-
ment. Thus, the related rebalancing costs of z = 7 and 9 are higher than z = 8. (2) Cycle time decreases with the increase
of workstations’ number. But when the number of workstations is fixed, a greater rebalancing cost leads to a smaller
cycle time. Take z = 9, for example, the rebalancing cost is 94 when the cycle time is 896, the rebalancing cost is 54
when the cycle time is 1118. (3) As we all know that a smaller cycle time means a greater production capacity and
fewer workstations means less production cost. Thus, the company can make decisions considering the trade-off
between costs and production capacity as we proposed. (4) The last and most important, all the Pareto solutions
obtained by the proposed MNSGA-II are better than the initial balanced line, no matter how many workstations are
used. For instance, when z = 7, although there is rebalancing cost due to tasks reassignment, cycle time is reduced obvi-
ously. SI and CSI are enhanced significantly, which means the idle time is reduced as much as possible and approxi-
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mately the same amount of work is carried out in each workstation. Additionally, the line efficiency increases from 51%
to [75%, 93%] and the production capacity per month increases from 306 to [416, 510], which can fully meet the needs
of the market.

4.2.2 Performance comparison of MNSGA-II and initial NSGA-II

To the best of our knowledge, there is no published research focused on two-sided assembly line rebalancing problem.
Therefore, two versions of initial NSGA-II are developed to solve the same problem for performance comparison of the
proposed MNSGA-II with different directions. One is to prove the effect of our modified methods on the algorithm and
the other is to illustrate the importance of our new model, i.e. the specific constraints related inevitable wait time. The
performance of the proposed method is evaluated in terms of three metrics: the ratio of non-dominated solutions, the
convergence of the Pareto optimal solution and the spread metric (Kumar and Singh 2007).
The ratio of non-dominated solutions indicates the coverage of one solution set over another. Suppose there are S
solution sets (A = {A1, A2 … As… AS}) for one problem, the ratio of non-dominated measure of the solution set As is
the ratio of solutions in As which are not dominated by any other solutions in A. A higher ratio represents a superior
solution set.
jAs  fðx 2 As j9y 2 A : y  xÞgj
RatioðAs Þ ¼ (22)
jAs j
where |As| is the number of solutions in set As, y ≻ x represents solution y dominates solution x.
The convergence of the obtained Pareto optimal solution set (As) is the difference between As and the approximated
true-Pareto set (A*) because the true-Pareto frontier is unknown generally (as shown in Appendix 2). The approximated
true-Pareto frontier is the first frontier of the combination of all non-dominated solutions obtained by intelligent algo-
rithms. For this metric, a lower value indicates superiority of the obtained Pareto optimal solution set.

Table 3. Comparison results of performance measure for ALs.

Cycle time (s) Rebalancing cost LE (%) SI CSI PC/m Computational time (s)

Initial situation 1386 0 66.8 318.18 500.86 410

Rebalanced line Sr7 1113 92 92.5 72.28 118.97 510
Sl7 1346 64 76.5 264.59 355.62 422
Sr8 979 72 92.0 112.57 114.73 580 960
Sl8 1150 45 78.4 171.32 335.82 494
Sr9 896 94 89.4 90.55 137.37 634
Sl9 1118 54 71.6 231.45 331.42 508
 International Journal of Production Research 15

P
jAs j
Edx
x¼1
convergenceðAs Þ ¼ (23)
jAs j
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u K 
uX fk ðxÞ  fk ðyÞ 2
jA j
Edx ¼ min t (24)
y
k¼1
fkmax  fkmin

where Edx is the Euclidean distance between solution x in As and solution y in A*, k represents objectives’ number of
the problem, k = 1,2,…, K. fkmax and fkmin are the maximum and minimum values of kth objective function in A*, respec-
tively.
The spread of the obtained Pareto optimal solution set (As) is used to measure the distribution of Pareto solutions in
As by calculating a relative distance between consecutive solutions. Obviously, a good distribution would make all dis-
tances Rdx equal to Rdand would make Rdf = Rdl = 0 (with existence of extreme solutions in the non-dominated set).
Thus, for this metric, zero is the best and represents a uniform distribution.
s 1j 
jAP 
Rdx  Rd 
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Rdf þ Rdl þ
x¼1
SpreadðAs Þ ¼ (25)
Rdf þ Rdl þ ðjAs j  1ÞRd
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u K 
uX fk ðxÞ  fk ðx þ 1Þ 2
Rdx ¼ t (26)
k¼1
fkmax  fkmin

where Rdf and Rdl are the Euclidean distances between the extreme solutions in A*and the boundary solutions in As.
Rdx is the Euclidean distance between consecutive solutions in As (x = 1,2 … |As – 1|) and Rd is the average Euclidean
distance of Rdx.
(1) To clarify the effect of our modified methods on the algorithm (NSGA-II), we propose an initial version 1 of
NSGA-II (INSGA-II-V1), which is designed using the same methods of encoding and decoding, initial popula-
tion, and mutation operator as the MNSGA-II. The differences are that INSGA-II-V1 does not consider the
crossover of similar individuals in the crossover operator and the two improved methods of selection operator.
The performance comparison of MNSGA-II and INSGA-II-V1 is shown in Table 4. Bold values mean the best val-
ues among the algorithms. In addition, the Pareto frontiers obtained by MNSGA-II and INSGA-II-V1 are shown in
Figure 7. Table 4 shows MNSGA-II produces great ratio and convergence which are far better than INSGA-II-V1 for
every size solutions (z = 7, 8, 9). In terms of spread metric, MNSGA-II is also superior to INSGA-II-V1, except for
z = 7. And it is observed from Figure 7, MNSGA-II generates more solutions than INSGA-II-V1, and all of them are
on the approximated true-Pareto frontiers.
(2) In order to prove the importance of our new model, i.e. the specific constraints related to the inevitable wait
time, such as novel cycle time, idle time and balanced constraints, we propose an initial version 2 of NSGA-II
(INSGA-II-V2), which is designed using the same methods of encoding, initial population, crossover operator,
mutation operator and selection operator as the MNSGA-II. The differences are that the decoding method of
INSGA-II-V2 uses Longest Processing Time (LPT) (Talbot and Patterson 1984). It is one of the basic heuristics

Table 4. Experiment results.

Ratio Convergence Spread

Problem INSGA-II-V1 MNSGA-II INSGA-II-V1 MNSGA-II INSGA-II-V1 MNSGA-II

7 workstations 0.0667 1 0.3762 0 0.4271 0.6127

8 workstations 0 1 1.1999 0 0.6490 0.2930
9 workstations 0 1 0.4356 0 0.6589 0.4643
 16 Y. Zhang et al.

7 workstations 8 workstations 9 workstations

1400 1400 1400

1300 1300 1300

1200 1200 1200

cycle time

cycle time

cycle time
1100 1100 1100

1000 1000 1000

900 900 900

800 800 800

40 60 80 100 120 40 60 80 100 120 40 60 80 100 120
rebalancing cost rebalancing cost rebalancing cost

MNSGA-II INSGA-II-V1 MNSGA-II INSGA-II-V1 MNSGA-II INSGA-II-V1

Figure 7. Performances of MNSGA-II and INSGA-II-V1.

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which are commonly used to find better solutions of tasks assignment and do not contain specific constraints
related to the inevitable wait time.
The performance of MNSGA-II compared with INSGA-II-V2 is shown in Table 5. Numbers in bold represent the
best values among the algorithms. In addition, the Pareto frontiers obtained by MNSGA-II and INSGA-II-V2 are shown
in Figure 8. It is observed from Table 5 that MNSGA-II significantly outperforms INSGA-II-V2 in terms of ratio, con-
vergence and spread metric for all the size solutions (z = 7, 8, 9). As shown in Figure 8, MNSGA-II produces more
solutions than INSGA-II-V2, and all of them are located on the approximated true-Pareto frontiers.

7 workstations 8 workstations 9 workstations

1400 1400
1400
1300 1300
1300

1200 1200 1200

cycle time

cycle time

cycle time

1100 1100 1100

1000 1000 1000

900 900 900

800 800 800

40 60 80 100 40 60 80 100 40 60 80 100
rebalancing cost rebalancing cost rebalancing cost

MNSGA-II INSGA-II-V2 MNSGA-II INSGA-II-V2 MNSGA-II INSGA-II-V2

Figure 8. Performances of MNSGA-II and INSGA-II-V2.

Table 5. Experiment results.

Ratio Convergence Spread

Problem INSGA-II-V2 MNSGA-II INSGA-II-V2 MNSGA-II INSGA-II-V2 MNSGA-II

7 workstations 0.0667 1 0.350356 0 0.5480 0.4643

8 workstations 0 1 0.704835 0 0.9259 0.2930
9 workstations 0 1 0.257862 0 0.9493 0.4643
 International Journal of Production Research 17

5. Conclusion and future research

In this study, we research a real-life multi-objective two-sided assembly line rebalancing problem with modifications of
production demand, structure of AL and production process. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to
solve this kind of problem in literature. The considered objectives are to minimise cycle time and rebalancing cost.
Some additional constraints related to the inevitable wait time, such as new cycle time, idle time and balance constraints
are taken into account. A modified multi-objective genetic algorithm (MNSGA-II) based on characteristics of the prob-
lem is designed to solve the problem. Eventually, the performance of MNSGA-II is verified from two aspects. One is
through the comparison of representative rebalancing solutions and initial balanced line. The results show that Pareto
optimal solutions obtained by the proposed MNSGA-II are significantly better than current balanced line of the produc-
tion system in terms of cycle time, line efficiency, workload and completion time balance and production capacity per
month with reasonable and acceptable rebalancing cost. The other is using the comparison between the proposed
MNSGA-II and two versions of initial NSGA-II. The results reveal that MNSGA-II perform better than almost all the
two initial NSGA-II in terms of ratio, convergence and spread, except for z = 7, where INSGA-II-V1 has a better
spread.
Actually, there are still many meaningful and practical constraints in the real two-sided assembly line rebalancing
environment, such as stochastic processing time, zoning, positional and synchronous task constraints and so on. In
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future studies, we would like to develop a new heuristic algorithm or extend the proposed algorithm to solve more com-
plicated and realistic two-sided assembly line rebalancing problems, such as stochastic two-sided assembly line rebalanc-
ing problems with multi-constraints.

Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the anonymous reviewers whose valuable comments and suggestions helped a lot to improve this paper
and the editors for their kind and sincere supports.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 51475303].

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Appendix 1
The crowding distance computation of NSGA-II
In the NSGA-II, crowding distance is executed after the non-dominated sorting of solutions in one population, which is used to sort
the solutions in the same Pareto front, in order to estimate of the density of solutions surrounding a particular solution in the popula-
tion. The crowding distance of one solution is the average side length of the cuboid which is formed by its nearest neighbours (solu-
tions) in the Pareto curve of the objective space, just as shown in Figure A1. As for a solution, the higher the crowding distances
value, the better the solution. To maintain the density of solution, boundary solutions (solutions with smallest and largest function val-
ues) are assigned an infinite distance value ensuring they are always selected. Take a non-dominated set P, for example, the procedure
of the crowding distance computation is described below.
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Figure A1. The crowding distance of individual i.

Appendix 2
The true-Pareto frontier and its approximation
A multi-objective optimisation problem (MOP) is a scenario in which at least two objectives needed to be optimised simultaneously
(Chutima and Chimklai 2012). Assume that one problem contains k objectives and fi(X) represents the ith objective function (i = 1, 2,
… , k). For a solution, if there are no other solutions better than it considering all objectives in the feasible solution space, then this
solution is called a non-dominated (superior) solution or a Pareto optimal solution. Take a maximisation problem, for exmple, a deci-
sion vector (solution) X dominates a decision vector Y (written as X  Y) if and only if:
fi ð X Þ  fi ðY Þ; for alli 2 f1; 2; . . .; kg (A1)
and

The procedure of crowding distance assignment

r ¼ j Pj number of solutions in P
for each i, set P½idistance ¼ 0 initialize distance
for each i; set P½idistance ¼ 0
for each objective m
P = sort(P,m) sort solutions of P using each objective value
P[1]distance = R[l]distance = ∞ assign the boundary points
for i = 2 to (I - 1) for all the other points
P[i]distance ¼ P[i]distance + (P[i + 1]  m  P½i - 1  mÞ=ðfmmax  fmmin Þ
 International Journal of Production Research 21

Figure A2. The illustration of the approximated true-Pareto frontier (set).

fi ð X Þ [ fi ðY Þ; for at least one i 2 f1; 2; . . .; kg (A2)

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All the non-dominated solutions in the population can be called a Pareto optimal set or efficient set. The collective region of the
points in the Pareto optimal set along a curve in the objective space are termed the Pareto optimal frontier (front) or efficient frontier
(front).
As shown in Figure A2, assume the shaded region is the feasible search region for a minimum problem, all the points (solutions)
on the lower boundary of the shaded area represent the true-Pareto solutions and they can be called true-Pareto set. The true-Pareto
set is unknown generally (Chutima and Chimklai 2012), thus, an approximation is needed. The approximated true-Pareto set is the
result of combining all final non-dominated solutions obtained from all the algorithms, applying Goldberg’s Pareto ranking technique
(Goldberg 1989) to the combined solutions, and the first frontier of the combined solutions is the approximated true Pareto frontier
(set).