Multi-manned assembly line balancing problems with sequence-dependent setup times

Abstract

In the production of large-size products (such as automobiles, buses, trucks etc.), designing assembly lines with multi-manned workstations may provide decreasing number of total workstations, requirement of large plant area and product flow time. Depending on the characteristics of the tasks about to be started and the one just completed on the same worker, setup times may be significant. Therefore, in some real life situations, it is possible to see setup times between tasks processed successively. In this study, assembly line balancing problems with multi-manned workstations and sequence dependent setup times are addressed. The formal definition of the problem is firstly presented. Then, its mixed integer programming formulation and is developed. In the computational study, by using these formulations, a set of test instances is solved, and results are provided.