Sustainability, Vol. 9, Pages 1811: Sustainable Production Line Evaluation Based on Evidential Reasoning (Sustainability)

Many production line imbalances have been observed in the pursuit of higher profits. A sustainable production line, also called balanced, leads to lower costs, good production environments, and green manufacturing. A decision analysis method, such as production line evaluation, is often employed to help decision makers make sustainable decisions. In this study, a sustainable decision-making model is proposed for the evaluation of engine manufacturing. To solve uncertainties in manufacturing industries while maintaining lower costs and an efficient production environment, evidential reasoning is used in order to evaluate the sustainable production line effectively. First, uncertainties in the engine production line and deficiencies in the existing methods for evaluating the sustainable production line are analyzed. Then, evidential reasoning evaluation of the sustainable engine production line model is proposed and an example is presented; to be specific, the analysis of three production line plans is conducted using evidential reasoning, and plan P3 is found to be the best. Finally, a FlexSim simulation is used to prove the feasibility of evidential reasoning evaluation, verifying its suitability for achieving sustainable production line evaluation.