Workload smoothing in simple assembly line balancing

摘要

This paper considers a simple assembly line balancing problem with fixed number of workstations and prespecified cycle time. Our objective is to minimize the sum of the squared deviations of the workstation loads around the cycle time, hence maintain workload smoothing. We develop several optimality properties and bounding mechanisms, and use them in our branch and bound algorithm. The results of our computational study reveal that our branch and bound algorithm is capable of solving medium sized problem instances in reasonable times. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd.