A classification of assembly line balancing problems

Assembly lines are special flow-line production systems which are of great importance in the indus-trial production of high quantity standardized commodities. Recently, assembly lines even gained importance in low volume production of customized products (mass-customization). Due to high capital requirements when installing or redesigning a line, its configuration planning is of great rele-vance for practitioners. Accordingly, this attracted attention of plenty researchers, who tried to sup-port real-world configuration planning by suited optimization models (assembly line balancing prob-lems). In spite of the enormous academic effort in assembly line balancing, there remains a consider-able gap between requirements of real configuration problems and the status of research. To ease communication between researchers and practitioners, we provide a classification scheme of assem-bly line balancing. This is a valuable step in identifying remaining research challenges which might contribute to closing the gap.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or aerial drones, are an emerging technology with significant market potential. UAVs may lead to substantial cost savings in, for instance, monitoring of difficult-to-access infrastructure, spraying fields and performing surveillance in precision agriculture, as well as in deliveries of packages. In some applications, like disaster management, transport of medical supplies, or environmental monitoring, aerial drones may even help save lives. In this article, we provide a literature survey on optimization approaches to civil applications of UAVs. Our goal is to provide a fast point of entry into the topic for interested researchers and operations planning specialists. We describe the most promising aerial drone applications and outline characteristics of aerial drones relevant to operations planning. In this review of more than 200 articles, we provide insights into widespread and emerging modeling approaches. We conclude by suggesting promising directions for future research.

Optimization approaches for civil applications of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or aerial drones: A survey

A taxonomy of line balancing problems and their solutionapproaches

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~ykoren/uploads/Assembly_System_Design_and_Operations.pdf

Assembly system design and operations for product variety

A versatile algorithm for assembly line balancing

Assembly line balancing problems (ALBP) arise whenever an assembly line is configured, redesigned or adjusted. An ALBP consists of distributing the total workload for manufacturing any unit of the products to be assembled among the work stations along the line. The sequence-dependent assembly line balancing problem (SDALBP) is an extension of the standard simple assembly line balancing problem (SALBP) which has significant relevance in real-world assembly line settings. SDALBP extends the basic problem by considering sequence-dependent task times. In this paper, we define this new problem, formulate several versions of a mixed-integer program, adapt solution approaches for SALBP to SDALBP, generate test data and perform some preliminary computational experiments. As a main result, we find that applying SALBP-based search procedures is very effective, whereas modelling and solving the problem with MIP standard software is not recommendable.

The sequence-dependent assembly line balancing problem

In today's mixed-model assembly production, there are two recent trends—namely, increasing vertical integration and the proliferation of product variety—that shift focus to an efficient just-in-time part supply. In this context, many automobile manufacturers set up decentralized logistics areas referred to as supermarkets. Here, small tow trains are loaded with parts and travel across the shop floor on specific routes to make frequent small-lot deliveries that are needed by the stations of the line. This article investigates the loading problem of tow trains, which aims at minimizing inventory near the line while avoiding material shortages given the limited capacity of the tow trains. An exact polynomial-time solution procedure is presented and interdependencies with production planning, that is, the sequencing problem of product models launched down the line, are investigated in a comprehensive computational study.

Optimally loading tow trains for just-in-time supply of mixed-model assembly lines

https://www.econbiz.de/archiv1/2010/107190_determining_crane_areas.pdf

Determining crane areas in intermodal transshipment yards: The yard partition problem

Assembly line balancing problems (ALBP) consist of distributing the total workload for manufacturing any unit of the products to be assembled among the work stations along a manufacturing line as used in the automotive or the electronics industries. Usually, theory assumes that, within each station, tasks can be executed in an arbitrary precedence-feasible sequence without changing station times. In practice, however, the task sequence may influence the station time considerably as sequence-dependent setups (e.g., walking distances, tool changes) have to be considered. Including this aspect leads to a joint balancing and scheduling problem, which we call SUALBSP (setup assembly line balancing and scheduling problem). In this paper, we modify the problem by modeling setups more realistically, give a new, more compact mathematical model formulation and develop effective heuristic solution procedures. Computational experiments based on existing and new data sets indicate that the new procedures outperform formerly proposed heuristics. They are able to solve problem instances of real-world size with small deviations from optimality in computation times short enough to be accepted in real-world decision support systems.

/pdf/the-assembly-line-balancing-and-scheduling-problem-with-3jthnh5k9e.pdf

Malte Fliedner

Papers

A versatile algorithm for assembly line balancing

The sequence-dependent assembly line balancing problem

Optimally loading tow trains for just-in-time supply of mixed-model assembly lines

Determining crane areas in intermodal transshipment yards: The yard partition problem

The assembly line balancing and scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setup times: problem extension, model formulation and efficient heuristics