Essay About Assembly Lines And Manufacturer Of Utility Vehicles

An Interactive Program
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Abstract
We describe the development of a program to balance 1- or 2-sided
assembly lines for a manufacturer of utility vehicles. The program is
highly interactive, runs on a personal computer, and is in use now. We
also discuss some theoretical properties of 2-sided lines. Finally, we include
the data for a real assembly line.
Key words: assembly lines, line balancing, heuristics, software
Supported in part by the National Science Foundation (DDM-9101581), and by the Office
of Naval Research (N00014-89-J-1571). Address: School of Industrial and Systems Engineering,
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332
1 Introduction
A manufacturer of small utility vehicles rebalances its several very flexible assembly
lines as often as once each week to better match production rate to
market demand that is both seasonal and “lumpy”. Each line produces a single
model of vehicle. The assembly at each station is done by a worker who is either
a permanent employee of the manufacturer or else a temporary employee hired
from a pool of contract labor. The company wants to minimize the number of
stations