Presenting the concept and design and implementation of configurable intelligent optimization algorithms in manufacturing systems, this book provides a new configuration method to optimize manufacturing processes. It provides a comprehensive elaboration of basic intelligent optimization algorithms, and demonstrates how their improvement, hybridization and parallelization can be applied to manufacturing. Furthermore, various applications of these intelligent optimization algorithms are exemplified in detail, chapter by chapter. The intelligent optimization algorithm is not just a single algorithm; instead it is a general advanced optimization mechanism which is highly scalable with robustness and randomness. Therefore, this book demonstrates the flexibility of these algorithms, as well as their robustness and reusability in order to solve mass complicated problems in manufacturing.

Since the genetic algorithm was presented decades ago, a large number of intelligent optimization algorithms and their improvements have been developed. However, little work has been done to extend their applications and verify their competence in solving complicated problems in manufacturing.

This book will provide an invaluable resource to students, researchers, consultants and industry professionals interested in engineering optimization. It will also be particularly useful to three groups of readers: algorithm beginners, optimization engineers and senior algorithm designers. It offers a detailed description of intelligent optimization algorithms to algorithm beginners; recommends new configurable design methods for optimization engineers, and provides future trends and challenges of the new configuration mechanism to senior algorithm designers.


This book illustrates the main characteristics, challenges and optimisation requirements of robotic disassembly. It provides a comprehensive insight on two crucial optimisation problems in the areas of robotic disassembly through a group of unified mathematical models. The online and offline optimisation of the operational sequence to dismantle a product, for example, is represented with a list of conflicting objectives and constraints. It allows the decision maker and the robots to match the situation automatically and efficiently.

To identify a generic solution under different circumstances, classical metaheuristics that can be used for the optimisation of robotic disassembly are introduced in detail. A flexible framework is then presented to implement existing metaheuristics for sequence planning and line balancing in the circumstance of robotic disassembly.

Optimisation of Robotic Disassembly for Remanufacturing provides practical case studies on typical product instances to help practitioners design efficient robotic disassembly with minimal manual operation, and offers comparisons of the state-of-the-art metaheuristics on solving the key optimisation problems. Therefore, it will be of interest to engineers, researchers, and postgraduate students in the area of remanufacturing.