Heuristic procedure for Mixed Model Assembly Line Balancing Problem

Mixed model assembly lines are imperative for catering to the highly customized demands. Such lines assemble multiple products in an intermixed sequence. Design of an assembly line involves balancing procedure: allocation of work elements into workstations. Assembly line balancing problems are NP-hard even for single model assembly lines and therefore heuristic procedures are often used to avoid the thorny dimensionality issue. Fast, efficient heuristics can be very handy tools for balancing the mixed model lines as the retrieval of feasible solutions is generally sufficient in real life. This paper presents seven priority rules that can be used in conjunction with a station oriented approach to solve Mixed Model Assembly Line Balancing Problem of type - II wherein number of workstations is given. Proposal of the priority rules and station oriented heuristic is based on the knowledge that minimizing cycle time alone is not a sufficient objective for mixed model assembly lines.