Abstract The collaborative robots (cobots) are increasingly being utilized in industries due to the advancement field of robotic technology and also increase labor costs. cobots on assembly line can be complete tasks independently or assist workers tasks. This study considers U-shaped balancing problem with cobots, where several different purchasing costs selected under budget constraint. Three...

In this article, we introduce two new variants of the assembly line worker assignment and balancing problem that allow parallelization of and collaboration between heterogeneous workers. These new line balancing approaches introduce an additional level of flexibility in the assignment and planning process, which may be particularly useful in practical situations where the aim is to progressivel...