Worker and oater time allocation in a mixed-model assembly line

Short term workforce planning of labor-intensive transfer lines is addressed in this paper. Although the products (e.g. trucks) are assembled on a serial line, they show large di erences in the processing times at each station. These di erences are due to the assembling options provided to the customers. Given the assignment of operations to stations, we have to nd a loading sequence for the products, a worker allocation and a oater time allocation in order to minimize the whole labour costs at the line. We develop a solution approach for this problem considering a rolling planning horizon. Numerical results show that relevant savings can be achieved. M. Gronalt and R. F. Hartl, Worker and oater time allocation... 2