Multi‐objective harmonious colony‐decision algorithm for more efficiently evaluating assembly sequences

Purpose – Complex products, such as aircrafts and ships, are assembled from many parts and there are many available assembly sequences. Selecting the best from the available assembly sequences is challenging because of many factors, such as assembly performance, assemblability, assembly cost, assembly quality and assembly time. The purpose of this paper is to investigate a new and efficient algorithm aimed at this goal.Design/methodology/approach – A new and efficient algorithm evaluating assembly sequences based on multi‐objective harmonious colony‐decision method is presented. This algorithm mainly includes three key steps: first, presenting the priority relationship between assembly sequences and the coefficient matrix for these objectives: assembly performance, assemblability, assembly cost, assembly quality, assembly time, and so on by several experts; second, calculating the maximum of harmonious values and harmonious priority value; third, if the maximum of harmonious priority value is not negative...

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