Line balancing for non-traditional assembly lines, mixed models, and sequence-dependent assembly times

Abstract Traditionally, the assembly line balancing problem dealt with balancing linear assembly lines given a precedence diagram of the jobs involved. The objective of this problem is either to maximize the workstations throughput, or minimize the number of workstations, given a cycle time. The job times are traditionally assumed to be independent of the assembly sequence. Recent technological and philosophical changes in the manufacturing area leading to job enrichment, mechanized assembly, non-synchronous assembly lines and non-traditional lines have reduced the practicality of traditional solutions. This paper presents an assembly line balancing problem in which the assembly times increase when a job is assembled late, due to extended fixturing and reachability difficulties. This paper presents a methodology for job enrichment introducing multiple occurrences of the same product in the same line, resulting in increased throughput of the line. All these issues are developed for a traditional linear lin...