PRODUCT/SERVICE DESIGN

LINE BALANCING
SESSION 5-6
SHRIKUMAR M
 LINE BALANCING
⦿ Disadvantages of mass/flow production

◼ Breakdown stops the line

◼ Product design is inflexible
◼ Pace determined by bottleneck work stations.
Line balancing is thus a major problem.
DESIGN OF AN ASSEMBLY LINE
⦿ Objective: Minimise the total idle time or
minimise # of workstations for a given speed
of an assembly line

⦿ Division of work into tasks

Precedence diagram

⦿ Grouping of tasks into workstations

 GROUPING OF TASKS INTO
WORKSTATIONS
⦿ The feasible range of cycle times

⦿ Line Balancing methods

◼ RPW – Rank Positional Weightage method
◼ No. of predecessors
◼ COMSOAL : Computerized methods for
sequencing operation of assembly lines.

⦿ Choice of design where balance delay and

idle time is minimal.
 PRECEDENCE DIAGRAM
⦿ Tasks numbered within each circle and
arrows show precedence relationships

2 4
7 8

1 6 9 12

3 5 10 11
 PRECEDENCE DIAGRAM
⦿ Square boxes indicate duration of the task.

3 4
2 6
2 4
7 8
5 7
1
1 6 9 12

5
3 5 10 11

3 6 4 4
 PRECEDENCE DIAGRAM
⦿ Assumption – Each task is indivisible
⦿ Each task must be assigned to only one
workstation
⦿ All precedence relationships among tasks
must be satisfied or Sequence of tasks must
be established.
 CYCLE TIME
⦿ Define the range of cycle time : Maximum
time for any task : sum of time taken for all
tasks.

⦿ Minimum cycle time: 7 units

⦿ Maximum cycle time: 50 units

 DESIRED CYCLE TIME
⦿ Consider the desired cycle time: any number
between cycle time range based on market
demand. How many should be produced per
day?

⦿ QN: If desired cycle time is more than 50

TIME UNITS what type of production is
required?
 DESIRED CYCLE TIME
⦿ QN: If desired cycle time is more than 50
TIME UNITS what type of production is
required?

⦿ Ans: 1 person is enough to complete all the

tasks. Job/batch production.
 DESIRED CYCLE TIME
⦿ QN: If desired cycle time is less than 7 TIME
UNITS, then what type of production do you
need?
 DESIRED CYCLE TIME
⦿ QN: If desired cycle time is less than 7 TIME
UNITS, then what type of production do you
need?

⦿ ANS: More than 1 assembly line is required.

 DESIRED CYCLE TIME
⦿ QN: If desired cycle time is within range,
what type of production is required?
 DESIRED CYCLE TIME
⦿ QN: If desired cycle time is within range,
what type of production is required?

⦿ ANS: Only 1 assembly line is required.

 OBJECTIVE
⦿ Assume desired cycle time is 10.

⦿ Group tasks such that no workstation time

exceeds desired cycle time.
 PRECEDENCE DIAGRAM
⦿ Square boxes indicate duration of the task.

3 4
2 6
2 4
7 8
5 7
1
1 6 9 12

5
3 5 10 11

3 6 4 4
 POSITIONAL WEIGHTS
⦿ Sum of duration of tasks from any position
till the end of the final task # 12

36 33
15 13
2 4
7 8
29
8
1 50 6 9 12

7
3 5 10 11
38 35 15 11
 GROUPING TASKS BY POSITIONAL
WEIGHT RANKS
Green box- individual task time; Yellow box – Σ successor tasks time

3 4
2 13 6
2 4 15
7 8
36 33
5 29 7
1
1 50 6 9 12
8
5 7
3 5 10 11
38 3 35 6 15 4 11 4

8 9 9 10 7 7

1,3 2,5 4,6 7,10,11 8,9 12

W1 W2 W3 W4 W5 W6
 LINE EVALUATION

⦿ Evaluate a line
◼ Line efficiency: LE measures the percentage
utilization of the line.
◼ LE= (Σ forward task durations/ # of
workstations x cycle time)x 100
◼ LE = (50/6*10 )x100 = 83.33%

◼ Balance delay = 1- line efficiency = 16.67%

 LINE EVALUATION

⦿ Evaluate a line
◼ Smoothness Index measures the smooth flow of
the assembly line.

◼ Smoothness Index = sq root of ( sum of squares of

Max cycle time – individual work station time)
◼ = Sq root (4+1+1+0+9+9)= 4.89

◼ The closer the SI value is to zero, smoother the

production line.
 EXERCISE 1
⦿ A company manufacturing toys has introduced a new
product in its portfolio and assigned an operations
manager to design and balance a new assembly line.

The rate of customer demand for the new product is

20000 units per week. The factory works 3 8-hr
shifts per day and 5 days/week. Each shift has
meeting time of 10 mins and break time of 30 mins.
The operations manager has the following data
available for designing the number and sequence of
workstations for the assembly line. The table
provides data on tasks, cycle time per task and
precedence relationships.
TASK # CYCLE TIME (secs) PRECEDING TASK #s

1 3 NA
2 5 NA
3 10 1,2
4 9 3
5 7 4
6 5 5
7 11 5
8 10 6
9 7 7
10 4 8,9
 EXERCISE 2
⦿ Using the information contained in the table
shown, do each of the following:
⦿ Draw a precedence diagram.
⦿ Determine the minimum number of
workstations required.
⦿ Assign tasks to workstations using this rule:
Assign tasks according to greatest number of
following tasks. In case of a tie, use the
tiebreaker of assigning the task with the
longest processing time first.
⦿ Compute the resulting percent idle time and
efficiency of the system.
 EXERCISE 2
TASK IMMEDIATE TASK TIME (MINS)
PREDECESSOR
A ---- 2
B A 2
C ---- 8
D C 6
E B 3
F D,E 10
G F 4
H G 3