Title: Bi-objective optimisation of a multihead weighing process

Authors: J. Carlos García-Díaz; Alexander Pulido-Rojano; Vicent Giner-Bosch

Addresses: Centre for Quality and Change Management, Universitat Politècnica de València, Camino de Vera, s/n. 46022, Valencia, Spain ' Department of Industrial Engineering, Simón Bolívar University, Av. 59 No. 59-92. A.A. 50595, Barranquilla, Colombia ' Centre for Quality and Change Management, Universitat Politècnica de València, Camino de Vera, s/n. 46022, Valencia, Spain

Abstract: A multihead weighing process is a packaging technology that can be of strategic importance to a company, as it can be a key to competitive advantage in the modern food industry. The improvement in the process quality and sensory quality of food packaged in a multihead weighing process investigated in this paper is relevant to industrial engineering. A bi-objective ad hoc algorithm based on explicit enumeration for the packaging processes in multihead weighers with an unequal supply of the product to the weighing hoppers is developed. The algorithm uses an a priori strategy to generate Pareto-optimal solutions and select a subset of hoppers from the set of available ones in each packing operation. The relative importance of both aforementioned objectives is dynamically managed and adjusted. The numerical experiments are provided to illustrate the performance of the proposed algorithm and find the optimum operational conditions for the process. [Received 19 March 2016; Revised 8 November 2016; Revised 18 January 2017; Accepted 6 March 2017]

Keywords: multihead weighing process; bi-objective optimisation; compromise programming; exhaustive search; reduction of variability.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIE.2017.084882

European Journal of Industrial Engineering, 2017 Vol.11 No.3, pp.403 - 423

Published online: 01 Jul 2017 *

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