Balancing of manufacturing systems with complex configurations for delayed product differentiation

In response to increasing product variety, manufacturing systems with complex asymmetric configurations have often been used for delayed product differentiation. Balancing these types of manufacturing systems, however, is a challenge, since existing line balancing methods usually have been developed for symmetric configurations, such as serial lines with parallel machines at some stages. This paper proposes a novel binary integer programming (BIP) model for task-machine assignment and workload balancing in complex asymmetric configurations for mixed-model production. The new model includes (1) mathematical representations of task relations and system configurations, (2) constraint equations for task precedence relations in asymmetric configurations, and (3) constraint equations for parallel/serial relations among tasks. This study extends the area of line balancing and task-machine assignment problems to asymmetric system configurations, and helps to select a configuration from alternatives.

[1]  James R. Jackson,et al.  A Computing Procedure for a Line Balancing Problem , 1956 .

[2]  Stephen Warshall,et al.  A Theorem on Boolean Matrices , 1962, JACM.

[3]  Maurice Kilbridge,et al.  A REVIEW OF ANALYTICAL SYSTEMS OF LINE BALANCING , 1962 .

[4]  Nick T. Thomopoulos,et al.  Mixed Model Line Balancing with Smoothed Station Assignments , 1970 .

[5]  Peter A. Pinto,et al.  Branch and bound and heuristic procedures for assembly line balancing with paralleling of stations , 1981 .

[6]  A. Chakravarty,et al.  Balancing Mixed Model Lines with In-Process Inventories , 1985 .

[7]  Soumen Ghosh,et al.  A comprehensive literature review and analysis of the design, balancing and scheduling of assembly systems , 1989 .

[8]  H. Van Brussel,et al.  Planning and Scheduling of Assembly Systems , 1990 .

[9]  Ram Rachamadugu,et al.  Improving the equality of workload assignments in assembly lines , 1991 .

[10]  Soumen Ghosh,et al.  Assembly line research: Historical roots, research life cycles and future directions , 1991 .

[11]  Avraham Shtub,et al.  An analytic framework for sequencing mixed model assembly lines , 1992 .

[12]  Alessandro Agnetis,et al.  Balancing flexible lines for car components assembly , 1995 .

[13]  M.,et al.  Managing Broader Product Lines through DelayedDi erentiation using Vanilla , 1995 .

[14]  Ming Zhou,et al.  A parallel station heuristic for the mixed-model production line balancing problem , 1997 .

[15]  Christopher S. Tang,et al.  Modelling the Costs and Benefits of Delayed Product Differentiation , 1997 .

[16]  Christopher S. Tang,et al.  On postponement strategies for product families with multiple points of differentiation , 1997 .

[17]  Andrew Kusiak,et al.  Design of assembly systems for modular products , 1997, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..

[18]  Andrew Kusiak,et al.  Delayed product differentiation: a design and manufacturing perspective , 1998, Comput. Aided Des..

[19]  Jayashankar M. Swaminathan,et al.  Managing broader product lines through delayed differentiation using vanilla boxes , 1998 .

[20]  Subhash C. Sarin,et al.  A survey of the assembly line balancing procedures , 1998 .

[21]  Hadi Gökçen,et al.  Binary integer formulation for mixed-model assembly line balancing problem , 1998 .

[22]  John Miltenburg,et al.  The mixed-model U-line balancing problem , 1998 .

[23]  MICHAL TZUR,et al.  Design of flexible assembly line to minimize equipment cost , 2000 .

[24]  Brahim Rekiek,et al.  Designing mixed-product assembly lines , 2000, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..

[25]  Matthias Amen,et al.  An exact method for cost-oriented assembly line balancing , 2000 .

[26]  R. V. Hoek,et al.  The rediscovery of postponement a literature review and directions for research , 2001 .

[27]  Ihsan Sabuncuoglu,et al.  Balancing of U-type assembly systems using simulated annealing , 2001 .

[28]  John Miltenburg,et al.  Balancing and Scheduling Mixed-Model U-Shaped Production Lines , 2002 .

[29]  Pedro M. Vilarinho,et al.  A two-stage heuristic method for balancing mixed-model assembly lines with parallel workstations , 2002 .

[30]  Wei Wang,et al.  Commonality and postponement in multistage assembly systems , 2002, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[31]  Marc J. Schniederjans,et al.  U-OPT: An analysis of exact U-shaped line balancing procedures , 2003 .

[32]  Saif Benjaafar,et al.  Resequencing and feature assignment on an automated assembly line , 2003, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..

[33]  Armin Scholl,et al.  A note on "An exact method for cost-oriented assembly line balancing" , 2005 .

[34]  Alain Delchambre,et al.  An integrated approach for product family and assembly system design , 2003, IEEE Trans. Robotics Autom..

[35]  Jacob Rubinovitz,et al.  A weighted approach for assembly line design with station paralleling and equipment selection , 2003 .

[36]  Angel B. Ruiz,et al.  Balancing assembly lines: an industrial case study , 2004, J. Oper. Res. Soc..

[37]  Jeonghan Ko,et al.  Reusability Assessment for Manufacturing Systems , 2005 .

[38]  S. Jack Hu,et al.  Automated generation of assembly system-design solutions , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering.

[39]  Jingshan Li,et al.  Overlapping decomposition: a system-theoretic method for modeling and analysis of complex manufacturing systems , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering.

[40]  Ningjian Huang,et al.  Modelling and analysis of a multiple product manufacturing system with split and merge , 2005 .

[41]  Charles Gautreau.  An automated assembly line , 2006 .