This article was downloaded by: [National Institute of Technology - Calicut] On: 30 October 2012, At: 06:19 Publisher:

Taylor & Francis Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

International Journal of Production Research

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tprs20

A genetic algorithm-based optimisation model for performance parameters of manufacturing tasks in constructing virtual enterprises
Fangqi Cheng , Feifan Ye & Jianguo Yang
a a b a

School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China
b

Faculty of Engineering, Ningbo University, Ningbo, People's Republic of China Version of record first published: 13 May 2009.

To cite this article: Fangqi Cheng, Feifan Ye & Jianguo Yang (2009): A genetic algorithm-based optimisation model for performance parameters of manufacturing tasks in constructing virtual enterprises, International Journal of Production Research, 47:14, 4013-4029 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207540801953155

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-andconditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

International Journal of Production Research Vol. 47, No. 14, 15 July 2009, 40134029

A genetic algorithm-based optimisation model for performance parameters of manufacturing tasks in constructing virtual enterprises
Fangqi Chenga, Feifan Yeb* and Jianguo Yanga
a School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, Peoples Republic of China; bFaculty of Engineering, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Peoples Republic of China

Downloaded by [National Institute of Technology - Calicut] at 06:19 30 October 2012

(Received 13 June 2007; final version received 28 January 2008) The performance parameters of the manufacturing tasks (PPMT) are considered as the key parameters in constructing virtual enterprises (VE). It is difficult to determine the optimal or near-optimal values of PPMT. In this paper, the optimisation process in VE is perceived as a bidirectional optimisation process which consists of the forward and reverse process. By analysing the process, a reverse optimisation model based on vector norm theory is proposed and the target function is defined as a formula of the sum of the weighting Euclidean distance between two PPMT vectors. The existence of optimisation solution for the problem is investigated. Then an adaptive genetic algorithm based on natural number encoding is developed to solve the problem. A practical example is implemented to verify the validity of the proposed model and approach. The discussed results show that the optimal or near-optimal PPMT is helpful for the candidate enterprises selection in the process of constructing a VE. Keywords: VE; performance parameters; reverse optimisation; Euclidean distance; adaptive genetic algorithm

1. Introduction A virtual enterprise (VE) is a temporary consortium that consists of several sub-production units geographically dispersed in the world as branches, joint ventures and sub-contractors (Gunasekaran 1999). In a manufacturing setting, a VE is constructed by partners from different companies, who collaborate with each other to design and manufacture high quality and customised products (Fitzpatrick and Burke 2001). Compared with the classical organisational structure based on long-standing business partnerships that can rely on predefined processes to determine what should be done, the VE organisational model is more focused on what can be done to achieve a common goal, and the cooperative process is a more dynamic and loosely coupled process (Perrin and Godart 2004).

*Corresponding author. Email: yefeifan@nbu.edu.cn

ISSN 00207543 print/ISSN 1366588X online 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/00207540801953155 http://www.informaworld.com

4014

F. Cheng et al.

With regard to the cooperative process of VE, most papers emphasise particularly on manufacturing resources optimisation deployment in the network manufacturing environment. In fact, the process of manufacturing resources optimisation deployment is that of selecting the right manufacturing resources according to the tasks of manufacturing the concrete products. Talluri and Baker (1996) proposed a two-phase mathematical programming approach to select the suited manufacturing enterprises where the factors of cost, time and distance were considered. Ip et al. (2004) described and modelled a risk-based manufacturing enterprises selection problem which is solved by a rule-based genetic algorithm (GA). Fischer et al. (2004) proposed a virtual enterprise model non-hierarchical regional production networks. A method is presented for choosing the most capable competence cells from a pool of potential competence cells based on the concrete manufacturing tasks. The aforementioned literatures mainly focused on the manufacturing resources optimisation deployment that is just one aspect of the cooperative process in VE. The other aspect is the optimisation problem of the manufacturing tasks that very few researchers have paid attention to. In reality, the structure and performance parameters of the tasks need to be adjusted according to the available manufacturing resources. In the process of creation or reconfiguration of a VE for manufacturing a product, the dominant company should first decompose the tasks into several subtasks, then negotiate with potential partners to obtain necessary information for partner selection (Wu and Su 2005). The tasks are the obtained market opportunities, and the potential partners have some manufacturing resources which reflect their core competencies to undertake the tasks. The task decomposition and allocation involves the optimisation problem of two aspects: the structure and the performance parameters of the task. Literature works can be found in the assignment and decomposition of the manufacturing tasks from the viewpoint of the structure of the manufacturing tasks. Wang et al. (2005) studied the formation of VE in a multi-projects environment. The principle of splitting project into min-granularity tasks was proposed for optimisation portfolio of VE. They believed that the method and the result of task decomposition would influence the formation of VE. Wu and Su (2005) discussed the problem of task assignment and presented a core resources-oriented method. The activities and their relationship are described and core resources are identified. The non-core activities are attached to the core activities so that each group of activities requires one type of core resources. Thus, the task decomposition can be done by grouping the activities required by the manufacturing of the product based on the core resources (Wu and Sun 2002). Choi et al. (2007) proposed a multi-agent-based task assignment system for VEs, which attempts to address the selection of individually managed partners and the process of assigning tasks to them. Martinez et al. (2001) discussed the principle of task decomposition and allocation in a VE. Due to the heterogeneity of partner firms, firm offers are also largely heterogeneous. The task decomposition and allocation was achieved in an iterative manner by the way of successive adjustments. To the best of the authors knowledge, there are very few references that discuss the optimisation of the performance parameters of the manufacturing task (PPMT). Lei et al. (2002) investigated the problem of optimising the PPMT in order to improve the efficiency of the group decision making process using genetic algorithm. However, they only determined the optimal trend of change for the PPMT. Therefore, in this paper, a reverse

Downloaded by [National Institute of Technology - Calicut] at 06:19 30 October 2012

International Journal of Production Research

4015

Downloaded by [National Institute of Technology - Calicut] at 06:19 30 October 2012

optimisation model based on vector norm theory is proposed and an adaptive genetic algorithm based on natural number encoding is developed to solve the problem. The purpose of this work is to determine the optimal or near optimal solution of PPMT using the proposed model. The paper is organised as follows: in the next section, the optimisation process in constructing a VE is analysed. In Section 3, the addressed problem is represented as a reverse optimisation model and the existence of optimisation solution is analysed. In Section 4, an adaptive GA as a solution approach for the optimisation model is developed. Then an empirical example is illustrated and the results analysis is given in Section 5. Finally, some conclusions are given in Section 6.

2. Optimisation process in constructing a VE In order to describe the optimisation problem in constructing a VE, the optimisation process is analysed and some concepts are given.

2.1 Enterprise forms in the optimisation process There are two forms for the enterprises of VE. One is dominant company and the other is candidate enterprise. They have different responsibilities for the forming of VE. Definition 1: Dominant company

When a company has a market opportunity and it lacks some resources, even no manufacturing capabilities, the company initiates the creation of a VE for the market opportunity and this company becomes the dominant company in the VE. The dominant company is in charge of decomposing, assigning the manufacturing task and selecting the suitable manufacturing resources to form VE. Meanwhile, it organises and coordinates the collaborative manufacturing activities of VE. Definition 2: Candidate enterprise

Candidate enterprise is a legally independent enterprise entity and has some manufacturing resources. It searches for opportunities in the market and participates in production activities of manufacturing task. If a candidate enterprise is selected to form the VE, it becomes a partner of the VE. The form of an enterprise in market is relative. An enterprise may be a dominant company at the moment, and then later become a candidate enterprise. There is another possibility in that an enterprise may also be a dominant company and a candidate company at the same time. In other words, the form of an enterprise in the market is dynamic and changing.

2.2 Bidirectional optimisation process There are two directional optimisation processes in constructing a VE. One is to optimally deploy the manufacturing resources with the condition of given manufacturing tasks. The other is to optimise the manufacturing tasks according to the available

4016

F. Cheng et al.

Downloaded by [National Institute of Technology - Calicut] at 06:19 30 October 2012

manufacturing resources. In this process, the manufacturing task must be appropriately decomposed into a number of manufacturing subtasks taking into account resource utilisation, production planning, and so on. Candidate enterprise offers, expressed in terms of task description such as cost, quality, due date are then collected by the dominant company to select the best combinations. In reality, the structure and performance parameters of the manufacturing task are always adjustable, and they should be determined by the mutual negotiation between the dominant company and candidate enterprises. The negotiation is generally a dynamic iterative process. To construct a healthy VE, both dominant company and candidate companies have the same active rights in market as the market players. One side does not always passively accept or cater for another side. Definition 3: Forward optimisation process

In the process of constructing VEs, the manufacturing resources are reasonably deployed according to the structure and PPMT of the manufacturing tasks. This process is called the forward optimisation process. Definition 4: Reverse optimisation process

Reverse optimisation process is the reverse of the forward optimisation process. During the reverse optimisation process, the structure and the PPMT are further adjusted to adapt the manufacturing resources with a variety of constraints. Figure 1 shows the bidirectional optimisation processes in VE. When constructing a VE, both processes should be considered to have a global optimised result.

Figure 1. Bidirectional optimisation processes in VE.

International Journal of Production Research 3. Problem description

4017

For easy understanding, several concepts about the performance parameters of the manufacturing task are first defined. Then the reverse optimisation model is proposed by analysing the optimisation processes.

3.1 Performance parameters of the manufacturing task (PPMT) Several definitions about PPMT and its variants are given as follows. Definition 5: PPMT

Downloaded by [National Institute of Technology - Calicut] at 06:19 30 October 2012

PPMT describes the manufacturing task attributes and reflects the performance index of the manufacturing task. The main parameters include the manufacturing due date (completion time), cost, and product quality and so on. It can be denoted as P fPj j j 1, 2, . . . , mg where Pj means the jth performance parameter of the manufacturing task. For the manufacturing task which consists of n subtasks, the PPMT can be denoted as: 2  3 P1 P11 , . . . , P1j , . . . , P1m ; 6 7 ; 6 7 6  7 P 6 Pi Pi1 , . . . , Pij , . . . , Pim ; 7, Pij 2 PRij , 6 7 6 7 ; 4 5  Pn1 , . . . , Pnj , . . . , Pnm Pn where i 1, 2, . . . , n; j 1, 2, . . . , m; Pij means the jth performance parameter of ith manufacturing task; PR means the range interval of the parameters, PR [PRL, PRU]; PRL and PRU are the lower, upper bounds of range respectively; PRij means the range of jth performance parameter of ith manufacturing task. Definition 6: Prospective PPMT

For the manufacturing task, the dominant company carries out a market study and determines the performance parameters values of accomplishing all of the subtasks. The parameters values are called prospective PPMT. It can be denoted as follows:  2 3 Pp1 Pp11 , . . . , Pp1j , . . . , Pp1m ; 6 7 ; 6 7 6  7 6 Ppi Ppi1 , . . . , Ppij , . . . , Ppim ; 7Ppij 2 PRij , Pp 6 7 6 7 ; 4 5  Ppn Ppn1 , . . . , Ppnj , . . . , Ppnm where PRij means the jth prospective performance parameter of ith manufacturing task; i 1, 2, . . . , n; j 1, 2, . . . , m.

4018 Definition 7: Completed PPMT

F. Cheng et al.

Downloaded by [National Institute of Technology - Calicut] at 06:19 30 October 2012

For the ith manufacturing task, the candidate enterprise k (k 1, 2, . . . , mi) offers his PPMT. It can be denoted as follows: 2 13 0 Pc1 1 Pc11 1, . . . , Pc1j 1, . . . , Pc1m 1 6 C7 B ... 6 C7 B 7 6 6 Pc1 B Pc1 k Pc11 k, . . . , Pc1j k, . . . , Pc1m k C 7 C7 B 6 C7 B 6 C7 B 6 A7 @ ... 6 7 6 Pc1 m1 Pc11 m1 , . . . , Pc1j m1 , . . . , Pc1m m1 7 6 7 6 7 6 ; 6 1 7 0 7 6 Pci 1 Pci1 1, . . . , Pcij 1, . . . , Pcim 1 7 6 6 C 7 B 6 ... C 7 B 6 C 7 B 7 6 Pc 6 Pci B Pci k Pci1 k, . . . , Pcij k, . . . , Pcim k C 7 C 7 B 6 C 7 B 6 A 7 @ ... 6 7 6 7 6 Pci mi Pci1 mi , . . . , Pcij mi , . . . , Pcim mi 7 6 7 6 ; 6 17 0 7 6 Pcn 1 Pcn1 1, . . . , Pcnj 1, . . . , Pcnm 1 7 6 6 C7 B 6 ... C7 B 6 C7 B 7 6 6 Pcn B Pcn k Pcn1 k, . . . , Pcnj k, . . . , Pcnm k C 7 C7 B 6 C7 B 6 A5 @ ... 4 Pcn mn Pcn1 mn , . . . , Pcnj mn , . . . , Pcnm mn where Pcij(k) means the jth completed performance parameters of ith manufacturing task offered by the kth candidate; i 1, 2, . . . , n; j 1, 2, . . . , m; Pcij(k) 2 PRij.

3.2 Optimisation process analysis The dominant company gains an order for manufacturing a product, and it cannot finish the whole production procedure by itself because of the limitations of manufacturing resources. It decomposes the whole manufacturing task into several subtasks based on the manufacturing characteristics and process planning of the product. For each subtask, the dominant company determines the values of PPMT (Prospective PPMT) according to the results of his market study. Then the dominant company can initiate a bidding process for each task. Those having the required manufacturing resources will respond to the invitations and put forward their values of PPMT (Completed PPMT) for the given manufacturing tasks. A gap may exist between what the dominant company expects and what the candidate enterprises offer. So both sides will further negotiate about the values of PPMT. It is an iterative process and can be done through computer networks. Finally, both sides have an agreement on the values of the PPMT. During the process, some candidates may be taken away, so the dominant company selects the partners from the remaining candidates. Once the partner is confirmed for every task and a contract is signed, the configuration of the VE for the specific product is completed. The optimisation process of constructing a VE is illustrated in Figure 2.

International Journal of Production Research

4019

Downloaded by [National Institute of Technology - Calicut] at 06:19 30 October 2012

Figure 2. Optimisation process of forming VE.

3.3 Problem formulation In the process of constructing a VE, the optimisation of PPMT can use the concepts of expectation and variation in mathematics statistics for reference. The dominant enterprise determines the prospective PPMT Pp after the manufacturing task is decomposed into n manufacturing subtasks. For the ith manufacturing subtask a candidate enterprise k(k 1, 2, . . . , mi) releases its completed PPMT Pci(k) from the view of its own manufacturing resources and market study. In order to model the problem, Pi, Ppi and Pci (k) are processed as vectors and the concept of the distance between two multi-dimensional vectors is introduced. There are many methods to express the distance such as the city-block distance, the Minkoski distance or the Euclidean distance. To simplify the problem, the Euclidean distance is used in our research. For the manufacturing task i, the average sum of the weighting Euclidean distances between the PPMT Pi and the completed PPMT Pci (k) s (k 1, 2, . . . , mi) of mi candidates is calculated by Equation (1). v mi u m 2 1 X uX t j Pij Pcij k di P mi k1 j1

P where j is the weight of jth performance parameter; j 2 [0, 1], n j 1. It indicates the i1 degree of divergence for the PPMT Pi from the offers Pci (k), k 1, 2, . . . , mi) of the manufacturing resources in the market. A smaller di(P) might be expected for the dominant company so that it is easy to find the collaborative partners to accomplish the manufacturing task. For a manufacturing task which consists of n subtasks, the weighting sum of the di(P) (i 1, 2, . . . , n) of n manufacturing tasks is researched.

4020

F. Cheng et al.

Pij is defined as the variable and is denoted as follows. P fPij ji 1, 2, . . . , n; Then, the problem can be modelled as follows: min fP
n X i1

j 1, 2, . . . , mg:

v mi u m n X ! i X uX 2 t !i di P j Pij Pcij k mi k1 j1 i1 s:t: Pij 2 PRij Pn

Downloaded by [National Institute of Technology - Calicut] at 06:19 30 October 2012

where !i is the weight of ith manufacturing task, !i 2 [0, 1], i1 !i 1. The objective is to determine the optimal P so that the f(P) is minimised. The practical meaning of optimisation model is to find the suitable P which is close to the offers of the manufacturing resources. It should be noted that the function is non-convex and the proposed model is a nonlinear, large-scale combinatorial optimisation problem. Therefore, an efficient solution algorithm should be developed.

3.4 Existence theorem of optimisation solution For arbitrary completed PPMT Pc, there exists P fP ji 1, 2, . . . , n; j 1, 2, . . . , m; P 2 PRij g: ij ij Such that D(P*)min f(P) Proof: P and Pc are multi-dimensional vectors, and vector norm theories are applied to prove the existence of optimisation solution P*. If V is linear spaces in domain of numbers K, and for arbitrary vectors x and y, the corresponding vector norms are kxk and kyk. Then they have following properties: (1) Positive definite: when x 6 0, always kxk > 0; when x 0, kxk 0. (2) Homogeneous: kxk jj kxk, 2K, x2V.   (3) Triangle inequality: kx yk kxk kyk; kx yk ! kxk kyk; x, y 2 V. For arbitrary vector x P, yi Pci, (i 1, 2, . . . , n), considering the homogeneous of vectors, the influences of !i, j and 1/mi can be ignored. Then D
n X i1

kx yi k

      x y1  x y2  x yn        ! kxk ky1 k jxk ky2 k kxk kyn k jnkxk

n X i1

kyi kj:

International Journal of Production Research Since D ! jnkxk

n X i1

4021

kyi kj

v !2 u n u t jnkxk X ky kj i v !2 u n n u tn2 kxk2 2nkxk X ky k X ky k i i

i1

Downloaded by [National Institute of Technology - Calicut] at 06:19 30 October 2012

i1

i1

Let fkxk n kxk 2nkxk

2 2 n X i1

kyi k

n X i1

!2 kyi k , n2 > 0,

; for arbitrary vector norm kxk, there must be a minimum value for function fkxk. Namely when x is a number of an interval, there inevitably exists an x* and the following relation is tenable. p D ! fkx k min fP: Thus the theorem is proved.

4. Solution methodology GAs are search algorithms designed to mimic the principles of biological evolution in a natural genetic system. During the last decade, there has been a growing interest in using GAs to solve a variety of optimisation problems in production and operations management that are combinatorial and NP hard (Gen and Cheng 2000, Dimopoulos and Zalzala 2000, Aytug et al. 2003). GA is also a search strategy ideally for parallel computing and can be effectively applied to the combinatorial optimisation problems (Kamhawi et al. 1996). The traditional optimisation methods, such as the exhaustive search method, the greedy method and dynamic programming, are either too timeconsuming or too difficult to find an acceptable solution. GAs are able to search very large solution spaces efficiently because of the probabilistic transition rules. They are well suited to solving complicated and multi-variable optimisation problems (Chen and Tseng 1996) and they have no requirement for convexity, concavity, and/or continuity of optimised functions. However, despite the successful application of various GAs to numerous combinatorial optimisation problems, the identification of the correct settings of genetic parameters (such as population size, crossover and mutation rates) for these problems is not an easy task. This is mainly because the performance of GAs relies highly on the settings of the parameter values. Consequently, an adaptive genetic algorithm based on natural number encoding is developed to solve the PPMT optimisation problem in order to obtain a good quality solution. In a GA method, partial or complete instances of the solution vector are referred to as chromosomes. Any particular component of the solution instance is referred to as

4022
Table 1. Encoding schema. Subtask PPMT Code String 1

F. Cheng et al.

...

P21, P22, . . . , P2m; ... Pn1, Pn2, . . . , Pnm P11, P12, . . . , P1m; x1, x2, . . . , xm; xm1, xm2, . . . , x2m; ... x(n1)m1, x(n1)m2, . . . , xnm (x1, x2, . . . , xm; xm1, xm2, . . . , , x2m; . . . ; x(n1)m1, x(n1)m2, . . . , xnm)

Downloaded by [National Institute of Technology - Calicut] at 06:19 30 October 2012

a gene. A given set of chromosomes constitutes a population. Three features should be considered for our GA, namely, the encoding schema, the design of the population and the genetic operators.

4.1 Encoding schema and model transformation The binary format of a gene is most widely used for modelling the binary-selection type of problems. Compared with the binary format, natural number encoding for genes of a chromosome is easier to express the meaning of solution. In this work, the natural number encoding schema is adopted. The value of gene in the chromosome is the corresponding value of the PPMT. The encoding schema is shown in Table 1. What is expressed by a string is an array of the PPMT by sorting ascending for the manufacturing subtasks from 1 to n. A selection represents a chromosome or an individual in the GA. So the variable is defined as follows: x x1 , x2 , . . . , xm ; xm1 , xm2 , . . . , x2m ; ; xn1m1 , xn1m2 , . . . , xnm The objective (2) and constraint (3) are equivalent to the following optimisation problem: m1 q 1 X 1 x1 Pc11 k2 2 x2 Pc12 k2 m xm Pc1m k2 max fx m1 k1 v ) u( m2 X u 1 xm1 Pc2m1 k 2 2 xm2 Pc2m2 k 2 1 t 2 m2 k1 m x2m Pc22m k v ) u( mn X u 1 xn1m1 Pcnn1m1 k 2 2 xn1m2 1 t 4 2 2 mn k1 Pcnn1m2 k m xnm Pcnnm k s:t: xij 2 PRij 5

The rewritten model in Equations (4) and (5) is much clearer than the original model in Equations (2) and (3). For such a large scale combinatorial optimisation problem, it is difficult to solve using the traditional mathematical algorithm, but it is easy using a GA.

4.2 Population initialisation In most GAs, the individuals of initial population are randomly produced. This approach does not consider the distribution of individuals of initial population in solution space.

International Journal of Production Research

4023

Thus some individuals may converge at a small partial space and it is not easy to extend the search space. In order to acquire diverse individuals in the initial population, a small interval approach is introduced. Firstly, the value range of parameters is divided into several intervals which are equal to the individual number of the initial population. Then the initial individual is randomly produced in each interval. Thus the individuals of the initial population are averagely distributed in whole solution space. This approach can ensure the diversity of the initial population and improve the speed of convergence.

Downloaded by [National Institute of Technology - Calicut] at 06:19 30 October 2012

4.3 Genetic operators The genetic operators used in the optimisation model include selection operator, crossover operator and mutation operator. The realisation methods of each operator are discussed in the following sections. 4.3.1 Selection operator Selection operator is independent in GAs and has no direct relation with the problem and with the fitness function, crossover operator and mutation operator used in GAs. Several selection operators exist in the literature. For example, the elitist model and the expected value model by De Jong, the tournament selection by Goldberg et al. (1991) and deterministic sampling, remainder stochastic sampling without replacement, stochastic tournament and remainder stochastic sampling with replacement are selection operators by Brindle (1981). These selection operators were presented for numerical optimisation and the main objective is to reduce sampling error and improve calculating precision. Compared with other selection operators, the tournament selection is more suitable for the addressed optimisation problem in this research. Accordingly, the elitist model and the tournament selection are adopted as selection operators in GA. In order to guarantee the astringency of GAs, the optimal individual in one generation must be kept to the next generation. Other individuals in the population are selected by using the tournament selection operator. Suppose there are W individuals to be selected, two individuals are selected randomly from the population and the better one kept for the next generation. This process is repeated W 1 times and eventually all individuals in the next generation will be obtained. 4.3.2 Crossover and mutation operator In standard GA, fixed crossover and mutation operators greatly influence the astringency of algorithm. It is difficult to find the appropriate values of fixed operators. When the individual fitness value is smaller than the average fitness value of the population, the crossover and mutation operator value should use a bigger value in order to improve the speed of producing new individuals. On the contrary, when the individual fitness value is bigger than the average fitness value of population, the crossover and mutation operator value should use a smaller value in order to keep the individuals. In this case, the crossover and mutation operators of adaptive GA are introduced according to Equations (6) and(7). 8 > k1 f 0 fmin < f 0 < f f fmin Pc 6 > : 0  f !f k3

4024

F. Cheng et al. 8 > k2 f fmin <  f<f  f fmin Pm > : k4 f ! f

Pc and Pm are the crossover operator and mutation operator respectively; fmin and f are 0 the minimum fitness value and average fitness value of the population respectively; f is the lower fitness value of two individuals which will perform crossover operation; f is the fitness value of the individual which will perform the mutation operation; k1, k2, k3 and k4 are coefficients and k1, k2, k3 k4 2 [0,1].

Downloaded by [National Institute of Technology - Calicut] at 06:19 30 October 2012

5. Experimental analysis 5.1 Case study We consider a real-world problem of a plastic injector enterprise that bid for a project for manufacturing a component of a plastic injector. The dominant company decomposes the task into five subtasks (T1, T2, T3, T4, T5) (i.e. n 5) which can be independently dealt with in the market. There are three performance parameters for each manufacturing subtask (i.e. m 3). They are: . The manufacturing time (T). . The manufacturing cost (C). . The manufacturing quality (Q). For the manufacturing subtask i (i 1, 2, . . . , 5; n 5; m 3), there exists Pi {Pi1, Pi2, Pi3} {Ti, Ci, Qi}. For the whole manufacturing task which consists of five subtasks, there exists P {P11, P12, P13; P21, P22, P23; P31, P32, P33; P41, P42, P43; P51, P52, P53} {T1, C1, Q1; T2, C2, Q2; T3, C3, Q 3; T4, C4, Q4; T5, C5, Q5}. The corresponding chromosome is denoted as: x fx1 , x2 , x3 ; x4 , x5 , x6 ; x7 , x8 , x9 ; x10 , x11 , x12 ; x13 , x14 , x15 :g The dominant company implements market study and sets up the contact with several enterprises which want to get the subtasks. The prospective PPMT Pp is put forward by the dominant company which is shown in Table 2. For the manufacturing subtask i, there are mi candidate enterprises which respond to the invitation with a bid. Considering their own manufacturing resources, these candidate enterprises present their completed PPMT Pc, shown in Table 3. The value range of PPMT PR is shown in Table 4.

Table 2. Prospective PPMT Pp. Pj MT (day) MC ($) MQ (%) T1 248 35 95 T2 75 23 96 T3 45 47 95 T4 69 45 96 T5 51 86 97

International Journal of Production Research

4025

The weights of the subtasks are determined by the dominant company according to the market environment and the structure of the subtasks. The weights of the performance parameters of the subtasks are determined by applying an approach such as AHP or ANP. The parameters of the GA are obtained by a set of preliminary experiments. In this case, the weights values and the parameters values of GA are shown in Tables 5 and 6 respectively. The numeric areas of individuals in the initial population are the same as the corresponding value ranges of PPMT PR in Table 4. By running the adaptive GA approach, we obtain: min fP 4:5616:

Downloaded by [National Institute of Technology - Calicut] at 06:19 30 October 2012

Table 3. Completed PPMT Pc. Subtask 1 Candidate enterprise A1 A2 A3 B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 C1 C2 C3 D1 D2 E1 E2 E3 E4 MT 121 301 345 87 75 84 97 93 24 69 56 63 84 62 53 38 49 MC 50 55 56 18 21 32 27 34 65 45 25 54 48 76 113 97 86 MQ 94 95 96 96 98 95 96 93 82 73 96 75 93 75 96 98 85

4 5

Table 4. Value range of PPMT PR. Pj MT (Day) MC ($) MQ (%) T1 [80, 400] [20, 60] [50,100] T2 [60, 100] [10, 40] [50, 100] T3 [10, 80] [10, 70] [60, 100] T4 [40, 100] [20, 80] [70, 100] T5 [25, 80] [40, 130] [50, 100]

Table 5. Weights. Weights of subtasks !1 0.2 !2 0.1 !3 0.3 !4 0.25 !5 0.15 Weights of performance parameters 1 0.3 2 0.6 3 0.1

4026
Table 6. Parameters values of GA. Crossover operator range 0.2 $ 0.8

F. Cheng et al.

Mutation operator range 0.01 $ 0.5

Population size 20

Iteration number 1000

20 18

Downloaded by [National Institute of Technology - Calicut] at 06:19 30 October 2012

16 14 Fitness 12 10 8 6 4

100

200

300

400 500 600 Generations

700

800

900 1000

Figure 3. Generation process of the adaptive GA.

Table 7. Comparison of PPMT Pp and P*. PPMT P Pp P* P11 T1 248 126 ST1 P12 C1 35 55 P13 Q1 95 81 P21 T2 75 90 ST2 P22 C2 23 22 P23 Q2 96 96 P31 T3 45 17 ST3 P32 C3 47 57 P33 Q3 95 85 P41 T4 69 65 ST4 P42 C4 45 54 P43 Q4 96 73 P51 T5 51 67 ST5 P52 C5 86 76 P53 Q5 97 78

The optimal individual (the optimal PPMT P*) is obtained. P f126, 55, 81; 90, 22, 96; 17, 57, 85; 65, 54, 73; 67, 76, 78g: The generation process is shown in Figure 3. The evolution process of the adaptive GA tends to be stable when the generation reaches less than 300. The comparison of Pp and P* are shown in Table 7 and is illustrated in Figure 4.

5.2 Results analysis From Table 4 it is seen that the obtained optimal PPMT P*&PR.

International Journal of Production Research

250 Pp 200 Values of PPMT P*

4027

150

100

Downloaded by [National Institute of Technology - Calicut] at 06:19 30 October 2012

50

0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Gene number

Figure 4. Comparison of Pp and P*.

Subtasks ST1, ST3 and ST4 have similar conditions. The manufacturing cost Cs of P* are higher than the ones of Pp for the three subtasks. The manufacturing time Ts and the manufacturing quality Qs of P* are lower than the ones of Pp. It shows that these subtasks are easy to accomplish in a shorter time at the expense of higher requirements for the cost. Subtask ST2 is quite similar to the subtask ST5. The manufacturing time Ts of P* are much longer than the ones of Pp for the two subtasks. But the manufacturing cost Cs and the manufacturing quality Qs of P* are lower than the ones of Pp. It shows that these two subtasks are technically difficult to accomplish and needs a longer time. For the manufacturing subtasks, the subtasks ST2 and ST5 are more difficult to accomplish than the other three. The existing differences between Pp and P* show that the dominant company does not fully realise the manufacturing resources in the market. The market study is also not enough. To reasonably adjust and optimise the PPMT is necessary for both sides of a VE. In this study, the search space of the adaptive GA is greatly extended compared with the TOPSIS approach (Hwang and Yoon 1981). TOPSIS is a useful technique in dealing with multi-criteria decision making problems in real world. The basic idea of TOPSIS is rather straightforward, it originates from the concept of a displaced ideal point from the compromise solution which has the shortest distance. In TOPSIS, for example in this case, the positive ideal point (PIS) is: PPIS f121, 50, 96; 75, 18, 98; 24, 25, 96; 63, 48, 75; 38, 76, 98g: The negative ideal point (NIP) is: PNIP f345, 56, 94; 97, 34, 93; 69, 65, 73; 84, 54, 63; 62, 113, 75g: So the numeric area of PPMT can be determined according to P(PIS) and P(NIP), which is illustrated as the highlighted shadow area (see Figure 5). The scatter points in line denote the value of P*. The values in gene numbers 3 and 7 are not in the highlighted

4028
350 300 Values of PPMT 250 200 150 100 50 0 0 1 2 3

F. Cheng et al.

Downloaded by [National Institute of Technology - Calicut] at 06:19 30 October 2012

9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Gene number

Figure 5. Comparison of numeric area in TOPSIS and P*.

shadow area. It shows that both sides of VE can settle a bargain with lower requirements for the cost and due date for some subtasks. Consequently, extended search space of adaptive GA approach is helpful to obtain a better solution than the TOPSIS approach (Table 4).

6. Conclusion and suggestions for further study Developing an appropriate PPMT optimisation model is the most important issue before a VE is formed. It is imperative for the dominant company to devise and identify an effective optimisation criteria and model. In order to obtain the optimal or near optimal PPMT and construct a healthy VE, a reverse optimisation model based on vector norm theories is proposed and an adaptive genetic algorithm based on natural number encoding is developed to solve the problem. A case study is implemented to verify the feasibility of the proposed approach and the computational results are satisfactory. The merits of combining concepts of bidirectional optimisation process, vector norm theory, weighting Euclidean distances in the model can be summarised as follows. . The bidirectional optimisation process describes the two directional optimisation activities in constructing a VE. . Vector norm theory and weighting Euclidean distance are introduced to model the optimisation problem. This paper only considers three factors of the performance parameters of the manufacturing task, and this topic remains available for further research.

Acknowledgements
The research reported in this article has been supported by Zhejiang province Natural Science Foundation of the Peoples Republic of China (Grant No. Z604342). We also thank Professor W. Xiang for critical reading of the manuscript.

International Journal of Production Research References

4029

Aytug, H., Khouja, M., and Vergara, F.E., 2003. Use of genetic algorithms to solve production and operations management: a review. International Journal of Production Research, 41 (17), 39554009. Brindle, A., 1981. Genetic algorithms for function optimisation. Thesis (PhD), University of Alberta, Edmonton. Chen, C.J. and Tseng, C.S., 1996. The path and location planning of workpieces by genetic algorithms. Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, 7, 6976. Choi, K.H., Kim, D.S., and Doh, Y.H., 2007. Multi-agent-based task assignment system for virtual enterprises. Robotics and Computer Integrated Manufacturing, 23, 624629. Dimopoulos, C. and Zalzala, A.M.S., 2000. Recent developments in evolutionary computation for manufacturing optimisation: problems, solutions and comparisons. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, 4 (2), 93113. Fischer, M., Jahn, H., and Teich, T., 2004. Optimising the selection of partners in production networks. Robotics and Computer Integrated Manufacturing, 20, 593601. Fitzpatrick, W.M. and Burke, D.R., 2001. Virtual venturing and entry barriers: redefining the strategic landscape. S.A.M. Advanced Management Journal, 66 (4), 2230. Gen, M. and Cheng, R., 2000. Genetic algorithms and engineering optimisation. New York: Wiley. Goldberg, D.E., Deb, K. and Korb, B., 1991. Do not worry, be messy. In: Proceedings of the 4th international conference on genetic algorithms. Los Altos, CA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2430. Gunasekaran, A., 1999. Agile manufacturing: a framework for research and development. International Journal of Production Economics, 62, 87105. Hwang, C.L. and Yoon, K., 1981. Multiple Attribute Decision Making. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Ip, W.H., Yung, K.L., and Wang, D.W., 2004. A branch and bound algorithm for sub-contractor selection in agile manufacturing environment. International Journal of Production Economics, 87, 195205. Kamhawi, H.N., Leclair, R.S., and Philip, C.L., 1996. Feature sequencing in the rapid design system using a genetic algorithm. Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, 7, 5567. Lei, S., Xue, X.F., Li, Q.L., and Xie, F., 2002. An optimisation method for the standard of agile virtual enterprise performance based on genetic algorithm. Computer Integrated Manufacturing Systems, 8 (6), 462466. Martinez, M.T., Fouletier, P., Park, K.H., and Favrel, J., 2001. Virtual enterprise organisation, evolution and control. International Journal of Production Economics, 74, 225238. Perrin, O. and Godart, C., 2004. A model to support collaborative work in virtual enterprises. Data & Knowledge Engineering, 50, 6386. Talluri, S. and Baker, R.C., 1996. A quantitative framework for designing efficient business process alliance. In: Proceedings of 1996 International Conference on Engineering and Technology Management, Vancouver, Canada. Piscataway, CA: IEEE Press, 656661. Wang, W., Yi, H., Xing, Y., and Ni, Z.H., 2005. Research and application of design method of VE in multi-projects environment. Computer Integrated Manufacturing Systems, 11 (3), 405415. Wu, N.Q. and Su, P., 2005. Selection of partners in VE paradigm. Robotics and Computer Integrated Manufacturing, 21, 119131. Wu, N.Q. and Sun, J., 2002. Grouping the activities in virtual enterprise paradigm. Production Planning & Control, 13 (4), 407415.

Downloaded by [National Institute of Technology - Calicut] at 06:19 30 October 2012