Assembly line balancing problem : a comparative evaluation of heuristics and a computational assessment of objectives

• Purpose – The purpose of this study is to firstly investigate the efficiency of the most commonly used performance measures for minimizing the Number of Workstations (NWs) in approaches addressing Simple Assembly Line Balancing Problem (SALBP) for both straight and U-shaped line. Secondly, this study aims to provide a comparative evaluation of 20 constructive heuristics to find solutions to the SALBP-1.Design/methodology/approach – 200 problems are solved by 20 different constructive heuristics for both straight and U-shaped assembly line. Moreover, several comparisons have been made to evaluate the performance of constructive heuristics.Findings – Minimizing the Smoothness Index (SI) is not necessarily equivalent to minimizing the NWs, therefore, it should not be used as the fitness function in approaches addressing the SALBP-1. Line efficiency (LE) and the idle time (IT) are indeed reliable performance measures for minimizing the NWs. The most promising heuristics for straight and U-shaped line configurations for SALBP-1 are also ranked and introduced.Practical implications – Results are expected to help scholars and industrial practitioners to better design effective solution methods for having a most balance assembly line. This study will further help with choosing the most proper heuristic with regard to the problem specifications and line configuration.Originality/value – There is limited research assessing the efficiency of the common objectives for SALBP-1. This study is among the first to prove that minimizing the workload smoothness is not equivalent to minimizing the NWs in SALBP-1 studies. This work is also one of the first attempts for evaluating the constructive heuristics for both straight and U-shaped line configurations.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Produktionsteknik, arbetsvetenskap och ergonomi (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Assembly line balancing

SALBP-1

Number of workstations

Workload smoothness

Heuristics

Production and Automation Engineering

Produktion och automatiseringsteknik

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)