The purpose of the research presented in this paper has been to characterize flexibility in lean mixed model assembly lines through exploring mechanisms used to achieve flexibility. The study combines a literature review and a multiple case study in two manufacturing companies. Scenarios of volume, mix and operation flexibility, as well as flexibility to introduce or remove products were studie...

assembly line production is one of the widely used basic principles in production system. the problem of assembly line balancing deals with the distribution of activities among the workstations so that there will be maximum utilization of human resources and facilities without disturbing the work sequence. research works reported in the literature mainly deals with minimization of idle time i.e...

This paper presents a multi-objective Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm for worker assignment and mixed-model assembly line balancing problem when task times depend on the worker’s skill level. The objectives of this model are minimization of the number of stations (equivalent to the maximization of the weighted line efficiency), minimization of the weighted smoothness index and minim...

Many assembly lines related optimization problems have been tackled by researchers in the last decades due to its relevance for the decision makers within manufacturing industry. Many of theses problems, more specifically Assembly Lines Balancing and Sequencing problems, are known to be NP-Hard. Therefore, Computational Intelligence solution approaches have been conceived in order to provide pr...

This paper presents an application of the simulated annealing algorithm to solve level schedules in mixed model assembly line. Solving production sequences with both number of setups and material usage rates to the minimum rate will optimize the level schedule. Miltenburg algorithm (1989) is first used to get seed sequence to optimize further. For this the utility time of the line and setup tim...