A RESOURCE BASED MODEL FOR MIXED-MODEL ASSEMBLY LINE BALANCING

The problem of assigning the distinct operations that compose the assembly process of a single product to workstations is typical in traditional assembly lines and is generally referred to as Simple Assembly, Line Balancing (SALB). For balancing modern assembly lines, in which several models of the same product are assembled, a more complex variant known cis mixed-model ALB has to be solved. Research efforts on this field mostly transform the mixed-model ALB problem to a combined one of SALB type under the premise that common tasks among the models are assigned to the same workstations. In this work we employ a relaxed approach to this restriction and we propose a new formulation of the mixed-model ALB problem? that more realistically represents the installation costly of an assembly: line. It? this context. the proposed integer programming model that minimizes the total cost of the workstations and the resources required to perform all tasks is employed to balance a mixed-model PC camera assembly line. The results show that the assignment of common tasks to different workstations for each model may offer lower cost solutions.