Balancing parallel assembly lines with disabled workers

In this paper we study an assembly line balancing problem that occurs in sheltered worker centers for the disabled, where workers with very different characteristics are present. We are interested in the situation in which complete parallel assembly lines are allowed and name the resulting problem as parallel assembly line worker assignment and balancing problem (PALWABP). This approach enables many new possible worker-tasks assignments, what is beneficial in terms of both labour integration and productivity. We present a linear mixed-integer formulation and two heuristic solution methods: one is based on tabu search and the other is a biased random-key genetic algorithm (BRKGA). Computational results with a large set of instances recently proposed in the literature show the advantages of allowing such alternative line layouts.