A novel artificial ecological niche optimization algorithm for car sequencing problem considering energy consumption

Abstract

This article proposes a novel artificial ecological niche optimization algorithm for car sequencing problem considering energy consumption to satisfy the requirements of the paint shop and the assembly line. Energy consumption, which is an important issue, is often neglected during the production process. In this article, the mathematical model of car sequencing problem with energy consumption is established. A new artificial ecological niche optimization algorithm that imitates natural ecosystem is proposed to solve this problem. The car sequence is considered as an ecosystem. Ecological niche theory, niche overlap and niche differentiation principles are applied in this algorithm, which leads the ecosystem to adapt itself to a more ecological balance condition accompanying less violence appear in the car sequence. Energy consumption in the scheduling process of ring sorting buffer was considered as biogenic migration in the algorithm. The proposed algorithm is verified on a set of instances provided by the French car manufacturer Renault. The computation results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.