A survey of evolutionary algorithms for production and logistics optimization

The main objective of this paper is to present heuristic methods based on evolutionary algorithms to address the production and logistic problem. The focus is brought on problems related to the design, organization, and management of the supply network. From the recent published literature, the author has identified the following types of problems as the most addressed: cell formation, facility layout and optimization of the workshop configuration, choice of locations for distributions centers, assembly line balancing, lot-sizing, production planning and scheduling, and configuration of the supply network. In addition, the author proposes a new approach to the distributed scheduling in industrial clusters which uses a modified genetic algorithm.