Incorporating assembly line balancing into assembly line feeding decision making

Often, assembly line planning is exclusively associated with balancing, i.e., the distribution of tasks among workers. However, products are becoming more complex due to customization and accumulating part variants. The assembly line feeding problem aims to support managing this complexity by determining part provision, e.g., whether parts are sequenced or supplied in bulk. However, feeding decisions affect picking times and thus operators’ workloads. Hence, we integrate assembly line balancing and feeding to minimize overall costs while maintaining a highly productive assembly system