A Workstation Solution Based Heuristic Algorithm for Assembly Line Balancing Problem

In the automotive industry, assembly line balancing work plays an important role in assembly process planning. Assembly line balancing problem is a kind of NP hard problem, especially for Two-sided assembly line balancing problem. It is too difficult to obtain the optimal result using the commercial solvers directly. This paper presents a heuristic algorithm to deal with the two-sided assembly line balancing problem. Based on the mathematical model of the two-sided assembly line balancing problem, we analyze the characteristics of the problem. A workstation oriented strategy is used to generate assignment for each mated-station. Priority rules are created in the process of solution generation. We implement numerical experiments based on the benchmark data sets. Results verified the effectiveness and efficiencies of the proposed algorithm.