Column generation for service assignment in cloud-based manufacturing

Cloud-based manufacturing has gained significant attention in academia and industry, presenting opportunities for enhanced operational efficiency. This paper addresses two critical challenges in cloud manufacturing: service assignment and transportation within hybrid hub-and-spoke networks. We propose a novel approach to minimize the total cost, encompassing manufacturing and transportation costs, through a mixed integer programming model and a column generation-based algorithm. Numerical experiments are conducted to validate the efficacy of the proposed model and algorithm, considering different system sizes. The results demonstrate the tangible benefits of our approach. By introducing a hybrid hub-and-spoke network, we achieve a substantial average reduction of 7.46% in the total cost of the cloud manufacturing system. Furthermore, our proposed algorithm outperforms existing methods such as Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and CPLEX. Particularly, in large-scale instances where CPLEX fails to solve, our algorithm outperforms PSO by an additional 3.43% in terms of cost reduction. Moreover, sensitivity analysis provides valuable insights for cloud manufacturing, contributing to its effective implementation.