FUZZY LOGIC APPROXIMATION FOR ASSEMBLY LINE BALANCING PROBLEM

Assembly is a process by which subassemblies, manufactured parts and components are put together to make the final products. Assembly lines are flow-oriented production systems which are still typical in the industrial production of high quantity standardized commodities and even gain importance in low volume production of customized products. In the most common statement of the assembly line balancing problem, a set of work elements having fixed duration times is to be assigned to a set of sequential workstations. A set of precedence relationships indicates the restrictions on the performing order of each work element. The assembly line balancing problem arises and has to be solved when an assembly line has to be configured or redesigned. It consists of distributing the total workload for manufacturing any unit of the product to be assembled among the workstations along the line. In a production system made up of several branched manufacturing and/or assembly lines, the balancing of lines is a frequent problem. In this study, fuzzy logic methodology is used to approximate assembly line balancing problem, and the effect of three factors, as human, raw materials and technology, on assembly line balance is examined