Balancing of parallel assembly lines

A survey of the literature on the multiple or parallel assembly line balancing problem

“…The problem, which is called the N U-line Balancing with Travel (NULB-T) Problem, is modelled (considering travel times and cycle time, precedence and location constraints), and heuristic solution algorithms are presented for both the general case, where U-line locations are not fixed, and for the fixed location case. Gökçen et al (2006) propose heuristic procedures and a mathematical model for the multiple or parallel assembly line balancing problem. The number of lines is known in advance and the aim is to balance more than one line in one step whilst minimizing the total number of stations.…”

“…Gökçen et al (2006) propose a heuristic algorithm for assigning tasks to stations so that some of them perform tasks that belong to two adjacent lines (again, some stations are shared by two lines).…”

“…b) Parallel straight or U-shaped lines with multiline stations: multiline stations are those that perform tasks of more than one line (i.e., stations shared by more than one line). Miltenburg (1998), Sparling (1998) and Gökçen et al (2006) include the use of multiline stations in their works. c) Parallel straight lines with crossover before some operations: crossover is where a product manufactured on a line blocked due to a failure downstream can be transferred to another line (Spicer et al, 2002).…”

“…Some of these procedures are based on simulation (Wyman and Moberly, 1971;Globerson and Tamir, 1980), others incorporate analytical models to estimate costs and model absenteeism or learning (Chakravarty and Shtub, 1988), and some use mathematical models in certain steps (Süer, 1998;Gökçen et al, 2006). Pinnoi and Welhelm (1997) are the only authors who propose dealing with the problem using mixed integer linear programming models (MILP), although they do not actually solve the models presented.…”

“…-To minimize the number of stations (Süer, 1998;Miltenburg, 1998;Sparling, 1998;Gökçen et al, 2006;Chiang et al, 2007).…”