Mixed Assembly Line Balancing

Assembly lines are meant to be a cost-efficient way to manufacture an item through standardization. Balancing the assembly line allows for low-volume, made-to-order production up to high-volume, mass-produced items. Essentially, balancing the assembly consists of allocating or reallocating tasks to a workstation to minimize downtime or constraints.

Read this article. The article proposes balancing production lines to attenuate capacity restrictions and increase balancing efficiency. Pay particular attention to section 2.2 on assembly line balancing.

Abstract

A mixed-model assembly line can manufacture different products in the same assembly line, providing flexible production according to demand seasonal behavior. This article proposes a heuristic that aims to balance production lines subjected to several product models in order to attenuate capacity restrictions in workstations and increase the balancing efficiency. The proposed approach was applied to a mixed assembly line composed of seven product models. The results were considered satisfactory when assessed in terms of production capacity, manufacturing cycle time, and assembly line balancing.

Keywords:
Mixed-model assembly line; Line balance; Capacity; RPW

Source: Gustavo Reginato, Michel José Anzanello, Alessandro Kahmann, and Lucas Schmidt, https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0104-530X2015005087414&script=sci_arttext&tlng=en
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