Computer Program of Line Balancing, Regarding Efficiency and Number of Stations as Variables

To assign work elements to the work stations in an assembly or manufacturing line, various computer programs have been developed and used. And it does that the number of stations or the cycle time is even given. But in practice it is desirable to obtain the assignment which shows the highest efficiency of line balancing under all possible combinations of the number of stations and the cycle time. Therefore we propose a computer program of the assignment method in which the efficiency of line balancing, Ebb and the number of stations, NN are regarded as variables. In this method the minimum value (EEb) of efficiency and the constant term (d) by which Ebb is reduced are given previously. And for any COmbination of Ebb (EE<Ebb<lOO) and NN (l<NN<Nm : Nm calculated from EEb), the work elements are assigned to work stations, the precedence restrictions being used. Ebb is reduced by d from the ideal value (100) until the assignment to NN is obtained. The efficiency of the obtained assignment, Ebo is calculated. As Ebb<Ebo