New mathematical and constraint programming models for U-type assembly line balancing problems with assignment restrictions

Abstract

In this study, the U-type assembly line balancing problem (UALBP) with assignment restrictions (AR-UALBP) is considered. Linked and incompatible distance and station restrictions are taken into account. New mathematical programming (MP) and constraint programming (CP) models are proposed. The objective function of the models is minimizing the cycle time for a given number of workstations. In addition to this objective, line efficiency and CPU time are also considered as other performance measurements. Numerical experiments on some problems from the literature are performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed models. The results are compared with the results of the CP model of the straight ALBP with assignment restrictions and also the results from MP and CP models are compared with each other. The numerical results indicate that the proposed CP and MP models are more effective in obtaining better and optimal results when solving the AR-UALBP.

Keywords:

• Assembly line balancing
• U-type problem
• assignment restrictions
• mathematical programming
• constraint programming

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).