1. Additional line balancing notes
SOM 306
Fall 2008
Abe Feinberg

2. Line Balancing Procedure
1. Determine which tasks must be performed to complete one unit of a particular product
2. Determine the order or sequence in shich the tasks must be performed.
3. Draw a precedence diagram. This is a flow chart where circles represent tasks and connecting arrows represent precedence.
4. Estimate task times.
5. Calculate the cycle time
6. Calculate the minimum number of work stations.
7. Use one of the heuristics to assign tasks to work stations so that the production line is balanced.

3. Assembly Line Balancing Formulas
Cycle time = (Available Work Time/ Required Output Rate)
Available Work Time = Scheduled Work time – Breaks
Theoretical Minimum No. of Stations= [Total Work Required for One Unit/Cycle Time] where [] indicates to Next Integer

4. Steps 1-2 in the Longest Task Time Heuristic
1. Let i=1, where I is the number of the work station being formed.
2. Make a list of all tasks which are candidates for assignment to this work station. For a task to be on this list, it must satisfy all these conditions:
a. It cannot have previously been assigned to this or a previous work station.
b. Its immediate predecessors must have been assigned to this or a previous work station
c. The sum of its task time and all other times of tasks already assigned to the work station must be <= cycle time. If no candidates can be found, go to step 4.

5. Steps 3-4 in the Longest Task Time Heuristic
3. Assign the task from the list with the longest task time to the work station.
4. Close the assignment of tasks to work station 1. This can occur in two ways. If there are no tasks on the candidate list for the work station, but there are still tasks to be assigned, set i=i+1 and go to step 2. If there are no more unassigned tasks, the procedure is complete.