MIG-ALBHW algorithm to solve Assembly Line Balancing with Hierarchical Worker Assignment

The need to study allocation problems with limited resources is essential for the development of Smart and Sustainable Cities and Regions. For this reason, this article addresses Assembly Line Balancing with Hierarchical Worker Assignment (ALBHW), aiming to find the best combination between tasks and workers at their workstations, adding a new hierarchy feature to workers. In this way, workers qualified to perform certain tasks have a cost proportional to their qualification. To solve ALBHW we propose a heuristic approach, not yet explored in the literature. Our hybrid algorithm, named MIG-ALBHW, combines the Iterated Local Search and Multi-Start meta-heuristics, in addition to being able to generate multiple solutions by adapting the construction phase of the Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure. Computational experiments carried out on a set of 54 benchmark instances demonstrate the efficiency of MIG-ALBHW, as 41 optimal solutions were found and on average 37.59\% faster.