A two-level heuristic for machine loading and assembly routing in a flexible assembly system

The paper presents integer programming formulations and an approximative lexicographic approach for a bicriterion loading and routing problem in a flexible assembly system. The problem objective is to determine an assignment of tasks to assembly stations for a set of products so as to balance station workloads and minimize total interstation transfer time. In the approach proposed, first the station workloads are balanced using a linear relaxation-based heuristic and then assembly routes are selected based on a network flow model. An illustrative example is provided and some results of computational experiments are reported