A New Mathematical Model for Solving Multi-Product Assembly Line Balancing Problems

The basic type of Assembly Line Balancing (ALB) problem is the allocation of work elements to a set of production work stations considering cycle time, precedence constraints, and assembly diagram to achieve predefined performance criteria such as line efficiency and smoothness index. In this paper, a mixed integer programming model for solving multiple product ALB problems with processing times larger than cycle time as well as technological constraints is presented. The performance of presented model in finding optimal solution is compared with models presented in the literature by solving sample problems. The obtained results were quite satisfactory. Also, the relative advantages of the proposed model in comparison with some approaches in the literature are verified and shown using Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric testing approach. This was accomplished by calculating the measures of performance such as line smoothness, line efficiency and deviations of solved sample problems.