Abstract
An optimal design strategy is developed to control the bottleneck problem, and for optimal utilization of a finite capacity integrated assembly line system (consisting of a set of tandem workstations, a set of inspection stations, a loading station and an unloading station, lined by a material handling system). To develop the proposed design strategy, a stochastic optimization model is presented to allocate flexible facilities amongst a set of workstations, such that the throughput rate from the system is maximized, while the resulting probability of finding either a workstation or a transporter station blocked will be sufficiently close to zero. The proposed stochastic optimization model is a non-linear channce constrained mixed integer programming model which is transformed into a deterministic mixed integer programming model, and is solved by a branch and bound algorithm.