Abstract: Aiming at the current material distribution path optimization problems such as the slow response speed of workstation demand, the untimely transfer of finished products and the untimely recovery of waste materials in the mechanical workshop, a two-way material distribution strategy that can reflect the urgency of the material demand at the workstation was adopted. The total distribution cost was taken as the optimization objective, including minimizing the vehicle transportation cost, vehicle dispatch cost and penalty cost of violating the time window, and the material distribution path optimization model was established. In addition, combined with the characteristics of the model, a hybrid algorithm combining tabu search algorithm with genetic algorithm was designed to solve the optimization model, and an example was simulated by MATLAB. The simulation results show that the two-way material distribution strategy in the workshop considering the priority of the workstation is more suitable for the production environment of the intelligent mechanical workshop, and comparing with the genetic algorithm alone, the use of the hybrid algorithm reduces the cost by 399.5 yuan, and the priority service rate increases by 3%, which verifies the effectiveness of the hybrid genetic tabu search algorithm in solving the path optimization problem under this strategy.

Key words:  path planning; workstation priority; two-way material distribution; genetic algorithm; tabu search algorithm

TONG Fu-jiao, XU Jin, ZHANG Shou-jing. Two-way material distribution path planning for intelligent workshops considering workstation priority［J］.Journal of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering, 2021,38(11):1465-1471.