Balancing of parallel assembly lines

Abstract

Productivity improvement in assembly lines is very important because it increases capacity and reduces cost. If the capacity of the line is insufficient, one possible way to increase the capacity is to construct parallel lines. In this study, new procedures and a mathematical model on the single model assembly line balancing problem with parallel lines are proposed. The procedures are illustrated with numerical examples. Lastly, active case procedure and the mathematical model are tested on well-known problems in the line balancing literature. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.