Assembly line design considering line balancing and part feeding

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to optimize the configuration of assembly lines (ALs) considering the two long-term decision problems within the line balancing and part feeding (PF) contexts, when the supermarket concept is applied in PF. Design/methodology/approach To this purpose, a bi-level mathematical model is proposed to deal with the assembly line balancing problem (ALBP) and supermarket location problem (SLP) during the strategic decision-making phase of ALs’ configuration. The proposed model is applied on the known test problems taken from the ALBP literature to verify its performance. Findings The computational results verify that when the proposed structure is applied, the resulting AL configurations are optimized from both ALBP and SLP considerations in terms of the number of stations and line efficiency as well as supermarket transportation and installation costs. Originality/value No study has yet dealt with the long-term decision problem of configuring ALs considering both ALBP and SLP. Also, this study validates the effect of the ALBP on the SLP solutions as two long-term interrelated decision problems.