ASALBP: the alternative subgraphs assembly line balancing problem

Abstract

Assembly line balancing problems basically consist of assigning a set of tasks to a group of workstations while maintaining the tasks’ precedence relations, which are represented by a predetermined precedence graph. However, one or more parts of a product's assembly process may admit alternative precedence subgraphs, which represent possible assembly variants. In general, because of the great difficulty of the problem and the impossibility of representing alternative subgraphs in a precedence graph, the system designer will decide to select, a priori, one of such alternative subgraphs. This paper presents, characterizes and formulates a new general assembly line balancing problem with practical relevance: the alternative subgraphs assembly line balancing problem (ASALBP). Its novel characteristic is that it considers the possibility of having alternative assembly subgraphs, with the processing times and/or the precedence relations of certain tasks dependent on the assembly subgraph selected. Therefore, solving this problem implies simultaneously selecting an assembly subgraph for each part of the assembly that allows alternatives and balancing the line. The potentially positive effects of this on the solution of the problem are shown in a numerical example. Finally, a simple mathematical programming model is described and the results of a brief computational experiment are presented.

Keywords:

• Assembly line balancing
• Production
• Assembly alternatives

Acknowledgments

Supported by the Spanish MCyT project DPI2004–03472, co-financed by FEDER. The authors are very grateful to Professor Albert Corominas (Technical University of Catalonia) for his valuable comments, which have helped to enhance this paper. Moreover, the authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable insights, as we believe that these have considerably improved the paper.