Abstract
The efficient, optimized manufacture of sophisticated products largely depends upon a globally optimized design and manufacturing solution. Ideally, the decision-making tools independently used within various enterprise divisions, such as design and manufacturing, should be integrated, and all decisions made should take into account the goal of global optimization of the entire system. This paper proposes an integrated global optimization technique especially suited to systems consisting of multiple divisions. Each division’s decision-making tools are transformed into components, the interrelationships of these components and other decision variables are classified, and an optimization problem is formulated based on these classifications. The obtained optimization problem is constructed from hierarchically structured decision variables, and the optimization problem is represented by hierarchical genes. Finally, to achieve a globally optimal solution, a hybrid optimization method is demonstrated, that uses a combination of hierarchical genetic algorithms in concert with the optimization methods attached to divisional decision-making components.
