A NEW MATHEMATICAL MODEL FOR PARALLEL ASSEMBLY LINE BALANCING PROBLEM WITH ERGONOMIC CONSTRAINTS: ERGOPALBP

Abstract

Parallel assembly line (PAL) systems are one of the most preferred assembly line (AL) types for high volume and mass production in real-life applications. In the PALs, a parallel assembly line balancing problem (PALBP) is basically solved according to certain priority relations and task processing times. However, academic research generally does not take into account the ergonomic strains exposed by workers at stations. It would be a more accurate approach to consider ergonomic aspects in real-life PALBPs. In this study, the ergonomic-constrained PALBP (ergoPALBP) is discussed. Accordingly, the classical PALBP mathematical model is modified by adding ergonomic constraints. The mathematical model proposed for ergoPALBP has been implemented in a PAL system as a real-life application. Both ergonomic risk factors and total station operation times obtained with mathematical models used for classical PALBP and proposed for ergoPALBP were compared. According to the results obtained, the mathematical model proposed for the ergoPALBP shows a successful performance.