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Assembly Line Balancing: Henry C. Co Technology and Operations Management, California Polytechnic and State University

Henry Ford's introduction of the moving assembly line in 1913 dramatically reduced the time needed to assemble automobile chassis from 12.5 hours to 93 minutes. Assembly line balancing aims to assign tasks to workstations in a way that minimizes idle time while keeping work content balanced across stations. Key considerations include task precedence, workstation cycle times, and minimizing the total number of workstations needed. While heuristic methods can handle complex problems, optimization methods using techniques like integer programming guarantee optimal solutions but are limited to simpler problems. Assembly line balancing seeks the most efficient assignment of tasks to workstations given various technological and operational constraints.

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36 views

Assembly Line Balancing: Henry C. Co Technology and Operations Management, California Polytechnic and State University

Henry Ford's introduction of the moving assembly line in 1913 dramatically reduced the time needed to assemble automobile chassis from 12.5 hours to 93 minutes. Assembly line balancing aims to assign tasks to workstations in a way that minimizes idle time while keeping work content balanced across stations. Key considerations include task precedence, workstation cycle times, and minimizing the total number of workstations needed. While heuristic methods can handle complex problems, optimization methods using techniques like integer programming guarantee optimal solutions but are limited to simpler problems. Assembly line balancing seeks the most efficient assignment of tasks to workstations given various technological and operational constraints.

Uploaded by

Trace Hdez
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Assembly Line Balancing

Henry C. Co
Technology and Operations Management,
California Polytechnic and State University
Scheduling High-Volume-
Low-Variety Operations
 The mass consumption patterns of modern
industrialized nations depend on assembly line
technology.
 The classic example is Henry Ford’s auto chassis line.
 Before the “moving assembly line” was introduced in
1913, each chassis was assembled by one worker and
required 12.5 hours.
 Once the new technology was installed, this time was
reduced to 93 minutes.
 Favorable Conditions
 Volume adequate for reasonable equipment utilization.
 Reasonably stable product demand.
 Product standardization
 Part interchange-ability.
 Continuous supply of material
 Not all of the above must be met in every case.

Assembly Line Balancing (Henry C. Co) 2


Concepts (1/2)
 Minimum rational work element
 Smallest feasible division of work.
 Flow time = time to complete all stations
 Cycle time
 Maximum time spent at any one workstation.
 Largest workstation time.
 How often a product is completed.
 Inverse of the desired hourly output rate = the
amount of time available at each work station to
complete all assigned work.

1 2 3 Flow time = 4 + 5 + 4 = 13
Cycle time = max (4, 5, 4) = 5
4 min 5 min 4 min

Assembly Line Balancing (Henry C. Co) 3


Concepts (2/2)
 Total work content: Sum of the task
times for all the assembly tasks for
the product.
 Precedence diagram: network showing
order of tasks and restrictions on their
performance
 Measure of efficiency
Sum of task times (T)
Efficiency =
Actual number of workstations (N a ) x Cycle time (C)

Assembly Line Balancing (Henry C. Co) 4


The Problem
 Assign tasks to work stations
observing balancing restrictions so as
to minimize balance delay while
keeping station work content for every
station cycle time.
 Restrictions:
 Technological: precedence requirement.
 Position restrictions.

Assembly Line Balancing (Henry C. Co) 5


Finding a Solution
 Heuristic procedures generally allow for a
broader problem definition, but do not
guarantee optimal solution.
 Optimizing procedures generally have used
more narrowly defined problems, but
guarantee optimal solution.
 Examples of optimizing procedures
 Dynamic programming
 0-1 Integer programming
 Branch and bound techniques.
 Trend in research has been toward
optimizing procedures due to availability of
large-scale computers.

Assembly Line Balancing (Henry C. Co) 6


A Simple Algorithm
 Identify tasks whose predecessors have
been assigned to a workstation (available
tasks).
 Determine from available tasks, those that
fit, i.e., those whose tasks times time
remaining to be filled at this work station.
 Choose a task that fits by some decision rule
 task with largest time
 task with most successors
 task with greatest sum of task times of its
predecessors.
 Continue steps 1 to 3 until no task fits, then
go on to next workstation.
 Continue steps 1 to 4 until all tasks are
assigned.

Assembly Line Balancing (Henry C. Co) 7


Illustrative Example 1/3
 You’ve just been assigned the job a
setting up an electric fan assembly
line with the following tasks:
2 1 1
A B G 1.4
H

C D E F
3.25 1.2 .5 1

Task Time (Mins) Description Predecessors


A 2 Assemble frame None
B 1 Mount switch A
C 3.25 Assemble motor housing None
D 1.2 Mount motor housing in frame A, C
E 0.5 Attach blade D
F 1 Assemble and attach safety grill E
G 1 Attach cord B
H 1.4 Test F, G

Assembly Line Balancing (Henry C. Co) 8


Illustrative Example 2/3

Production time per day 420 mins


Max Production = = = 129 units
Bottleneck time 3.25 mins / unit

Production time per period


Required Cycle Time, C =
Required output per period

420 mins / day


C= = 4.2 mins / unit
100 units / day

Assembly Line Balancing (Henry C. Co) 9


Illustrative Example 3/3

Theoretical Min. Number of Workstations, N t

Sum of task times (T)


Nt =
Cycle time (C)

11.35 mins / unit


Nt = = 2.702, or 3
4.2 mins / unit

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Complications
 Behavioral options
 Job enlargement and rotation.
 Wages related to task.
 Distribution of slack time.
 Inventory buffers.
 Involving work group in decisions.
 Arranging stations to facilitate interaction.
 Personnel selection.
 Time to move an item between stations
 Machine-dominated work stations.
 Task times which exceed the cycle time.
 Stochastic task times.
 Mixed model assembly lines.

Assembly Line Balancing (Henry C. Co) 11

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