On the Multihead Weigher Machine Setup Problem

A multihead weigher machine (MWM) is a computer-controlled machine used to fill a package with small products or parts with a given target weight. MWMs are widespread in the food and non-food industries because of their high performance in terms of variety of products to be packed, high throughput and quality of the packaged items. Despite the popularity of these machines, no studies to date have addressed how to set up the operating parameters of these machines. In industrial practice, operators currently use ad hoc rules to setup an MWM, but the initial settings can have a dramatic effect on the machine performance. The aim of this paper is to formalize the setup problem and its main variables. Then an optimization technique is proposed to solve the problem.