A firing sequence based algorithm for two-sides assembly line balancing

For the manufacturers who produced large-sized products, such as shovel loader, engine, trucks and buses, two-sides assembly line layout will be a good suggestion to increase the efficient use of production equipment with smaller space, reduce the cost and improve the quality, which can sustain their competitiveness. Since assembly line balancing problem belongs to NP-Hard, a considerable research effort has been spent to develop heuristic approaches, such as genetic algorithm, simulated annealing, and tabu Search. However, two-sides assembly line has several features that are distinguished from those considered in traditional straight one-side assembly line balancing problems, traditional algorithms cannot be directly applied to solve the two-sides assembly line balancing problem. This study proposes a firing sequence based algorithm to solve TALBP. The relationship between job tasks can be successively converted into a network model with the firing sequence. By analyzing the token movement of the network model, the set of tasks that can be assigned to the workstation can be identified. Then, task is assigned to a workstation using this order and forward procedure to minimize the idle time. The algorithm is coded in Excel VBA and is tested by examples to show the efficiency of the algorithm.