IIE Transactions (2003) 35, 73–85

Copyright
2003 ‘‘IIE’’

0740-817X/03 $12.00+.00
DOI: 10.1080/07408170390116670

A weighted approach for assembly line design with station

paralleling and equipment selection

JOSEPH BUKCHIN1 and JACOB RUBINOVITZ2; *

1
Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel 69978
E-mail: bukchin@eng.tau.ac.il
2
Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel 32000
E-mail: ierjr01@ie.technion.ac.il

Received August 2001 and accepted May 2002

This paper studies the problem of assembly line design, focusing on station paralleling and equipment selection. Two problem
formulations, minimizing the number of stations, and minimizing the total cost, are discussed. The latter formulation is dem-
onstrated by several examples, for different assembly system conditions: labor intensive or equipment intensive, and with task times
that may exceed the required cycle time. It is shown that the problem of assembly system design with parallel stations can be
treated as a special case of the problem of equipment selection for an assembly line. A branch and bound optimal algorithm
developed for the equipment selection problem is adapted to solve the parallel station problem. Experiments are designed to
investigate and demonstrate the influence of system parameters, such as assembly sequence flexibility and cycle time, on the
balancing improvement due to station paralleling. An ILP formulation is developed for the combined problem of station paral-
leling with equipment selection, and an optimal solution of an example problem is presented.

1. Introduction task into a sequence of workstations, so that the assembly

A considerable proportion of manufacturing activities
and costs are devoted to the assembly of products. As the
life cycle of products becomes shorter, with rapid design
changes and growing product complexity, the assembly
systems must adapt to the change. A technological solu-
tion for these changes is the use of Flexible Assembly
Systems (FAS), which include programmable automation
and robots. The use of these flexible systems in a
changing environment requires methods for efficient de-
sign and re-design of the assembly system in which they
are used. This assembly system design is focused on issues
of assembly system or line configuration, balancing, and
equipment selection. The use of programmable equip-
ment and automation, along with human operators, ne-
cessitates design solutions that deal with optimal use of
equipment and consider equipment costs, along with the
objective of a balanced assembly line.
Most of the work related to assembly lines concentrates
on the line balancing problem. The traditional approach to
the assembly line balancing problem deals with grouping
and assigning non-divisible work elements of the assembly
* Corresponding author
time required at each workstation is approximately the
same. The assembly work is completed on the line as the
parts pass each station in sequence, with every station
adding its work content to the assembly task. The cycle
time of the assembly line is determined by the workstation
with the maximum work content time. Two formulation
types are possible for this problem (Mastor, 1970): type I
attempts to minimize the number of workstations for a
required cycle time, while type II attempts to minimize the
cycle time for a given number of stations. The grouping of
work elements into stations must be done without viola-
tion of precedence relations between the work elements.
Extensive research was done in the 1960s, 1970s and
1980s, resulting in many effective solution techniques to
the two formulations of the line balancing problem and
their extensions. Several comprehensive survey papers of
the many methods have been published, including Baybars
(1986) that surveys the exact (optimal) methods, Talbot
et al. (1986) that compares and evaluates the heuristic
methods developed, Erel and Sarin (1998) that present a
comprehensive review of the assembly line balancing pro-
cedures for single model and multi-mixed-model assembly
lines and Ghosh and Gagnon (1989) that present a com-
prehensive review and analysis of the different methods for
design, balancing and scheduling of assembly systems.
74
Most of the attention of the research work on assembly
line balancing and design was given to the configuration
of a sequential organization of stations on the line. Rel-
atively few works explored alternative configurations,
and in particular incorporating a certain number of
parallel equivalent stations into the assembly line. This is
in spite of several important benefits that can be achieved
by allowing stations to perform tasks in parallel (Buxey,
1974; Bard, 1989). One benefit is the potential improve-
ment of balance efficiency (reduction of station idle time),
due to the fact that each duplicated station has a cycle
time which is equal to the original cycle time multiplied
by the number of identical parallel stations. As a result, a
better fit of work element times assigned to the station
within the cycle time is likely. Another benefit (and even
necessity) of using stations in parallel, is meeting required
high production rates (resulting in short cycle times)
when some work element times exceed the required cycle
time. Last but not the least benefit of a line design with
stations in parallel is increased reliability. In a serial line,
a failure of a station stops the entire line, while a failure
of a parallel station allows continuing the line operation
at a reduced production rate.
Of the few works to suggest algorithms or solve prob-
lems related to assembly line configuration with parallel
stations, Buxey (1974) suggested two heuristic algorithms,
one based on the ranked positional weight method, and
the other on random generation of sequences. Both al-
gorithms incorporate a limit on the number of work ele-
ments per station, and use stations in parallel only for the
longer elements. Pinto et al. (1975) developed a branch
and bound procedure for selecting tasks to be paralleled,
with the objective to minimize total cost (labor, including
overtime, and equipment duplication costs). Their work
suggests that only certain tasks are duplicated (in different
stations), a procedure which is difficult to implement and
control in practice. In a later work, Pinto et al. (1981)
extend their branch and bound algorithm to include
possible paralleling of two stations. Nanda and Scher
(1975) present two models for designing assembly lines
with overlapping work stations (task paralleling), and
demonstrate that this line design is more balanced, and
has increased output over the serial work station design.
In a sequel work (Nanda and Sher, 1976) they present an
algorithm which incorporates technological constrains
that may limit simultaneous (overlapping) performance of
certain work elements. Their computational procedure is
based on disjunctive graph theory. Sarker and Shantiku-
mar (1983) suggest a general approach that can be applied
for both serial or parallel line balancing. Bard (1989) de-
velops a dynamic programming algorithm that attempts
to meet the required cycle time with the minimal total
number of stations, while improving the line efficiency
(reducing ‘dead’ time at stations) by using parallel sta-
tions, and selecting the parallel configuration with mini-
mum cost (due to the equipment duplication necessary at
Bukchin and Rubinovitz
the parallel stations). Udomkesmalee and Daganzo (1989)
focus on a flexible (in fact, mixed-model) assembly line
with parallel stations. An undesirable effect that may oc-
cur in such a situation, where task times (for different
models) are allowed to vary, is that jobs (specific work
orders for assembly of models) may get out of the initially
planned processing sequence. This in turn affects the pre-
planned supply of parts and materials to the assembly line.
The work analyzes the effect of variation in process times
on the job sequences in a given parallel-processing as-
sembly line. To solve the problem, the use of either ma-
terial or job buffers is suggested to re-sequence materials
or jobs, as needed, and the work provides analytical
models to determine the size of the buffers needed. In
a recent work, McMullen and Frazier (1997) suggest a
simple heuristic procedure to solve a mixed-model as-
sembly line problem with stochastic task times when
paralleling of tasks is permitted. In another work, they use
a simulated annealing heuristic to solve the same problem
for a multi-objective combined mainly of the total cost of
labor and equipment and the balance efficiency (McMul-
len and Frazier, 1998). Askin and Zhou (1997) propose a
nonlinear integer program model for a mixed-model
production line with parallel stations. Their model in-
corporates a cost trade-off in the objective function, be-
tween balance quality and equipment duplication in
parallel stations. To solve the problem, a heuristic method
is developed, based on a task assignment rule and a station
paralleling rule. Suer Gursel (1988) suggests a simple
heuristic for designing parallel assembly lines for high
production rates, with the objective to minimize man-
power required. The heuristic is based on a three-phase
methodology that balances the assembly line, determines
parallel stations, and determines parallel lines.
Pinnoi and Wilhelm (1997) propose a unified classifica-
tion for the design of deterministic assembly systems.
Their classification accommodates tasks with processing
times longer than the cycle time, positional constraints on
task processing, and station configurations of single, par-
allel, collateral or collaborative machines. The purpose of
this classification is to suggest a unified framework of hi-
erarchical models for the design of assembly systems,
that would be solved by a technique such as strong cutting
plane methods. However, later implementations of this
approach (Pinnoi and Wilhelm, 1998) are limited to the
single-product assembly system design problem, attempt-
ing optimal cost solution for the assignment of machines to
stations at the required cycle time, and without exploring
different station configurations, such as stations in parallel.
The objective of our work is to provide a comprehen-
sive approach for the assembly line design for minimizing
the associated cost. In the studied system several equip-
ment types as well as a human operator that are capable
of performing the assembly operations are considered
and paralleling of stations is allowed. In such systems that
may be highly mechanized the associated costs is highly
Weighted approach for assembly line design 75
8
dependent on the number of parallel stations, due to the > 1 if task i is assigned at stage j (to a single sta-
<
equipment duplication. Hence we first analyze the parallel xij =
tion or to several identical parallel stations
station problem, and add weights which are associated >
: opened at this stage),
with the system costs to the objective function. These 0 otherwise;
weights are also considered as control parameters, and by Pi = set of tasks that must precede task i due to
changing these weights, different line configurations, as- technological constraints;
sociated with different types of assembly systems (human Wk = weight (cost factor) for each paralleling situation
intensive, capital intensive), are obtained. Next we show of k identical parallel stations;
that the parallel station problem is analogous to the as- yjk = a binary variable, which equals one when there
sembly line design with equipment selection, discussed in are exactly k parallel stations in stage j;
Bukchin and Tzur (2000). Moreover, we show that the Jmax = the maximal number of stages;
former problem is a special case of the latter, and hence Kmax = the maximum number of stations in parallel;
can be solved by the branch and bound algorithm de- n = the number of tasks.
veloped by Bukchin and Tzur (2000). Eventually the
combined problem (parallel stations and equipment du- The mathematical program (P1) can now be formulated
plication) is addressed and solved by the same procedure. as follows:
In the next section the model is developed, starting
from a basic formulation that leads to a full model and Jmax X
X Kmax

definition of the different weights appropriate for the ðP1Þ min Wk yjk ; ð1Þ
j¼1 k¼1
different paralleling situations. The solution algorithm is
reviewed and adapted to our problem in Section 3. A subject to
comprehensive analysis of the problem variations, and
X
Jmax X
Jmax
examples of the effect of different weights on the problem r  xgr  l  xhl 8g; 8h; subject to g 2 Ph ; ð2Þ
solutions is presented in Section 4. In this section, a de- r¼1 l¼1
tailed analysis of the relation between problem parame-
ters and the balancing improvement that can be achieved X
Jmax
xij ¼ 1 8i; ð3Þ
by paralleling is also conducted. Section 5 extends the j¼1
problem to deal with multiple equipment types option,
and selection of equipment for the parallel stations. X
n X
Kmax

Summary and discussion are presented in Section 6. ti xij  kyjk C 8j; ð4Þ
i¼1 k¼1

2. Problem description
2.1. Model development
In this section, models for the assembly line design
problem are developed. We start with a basic model that
minimizes the number of stations, while allowing stations
in parallel. Further, this model is reformulated to incor-
porate cost/weight factor for different paralleling situa-
tions. The formulation of this model is similar, in part, to
the model suggested by Askin and Zhou (1997). However,
in lieu of incorporating just the equipment cost and sta-
tion fixed operating cost per period, the model uses more
general cost/weight factors. These factors can express
different costs related to the line design, and enable the
setting of unique weight values to solve different design
problems associated with the particular nature of the
assembly system environment.
2.2. Problem formulation
Notation:
C = cycle time;
ti = duration of task i;
X
Kmax
yjk  1 8j; ð5Þ
k¼1
xij ¼ 0; 1 8i; j;
ð6Þ
yjk ¼ 0; 1 8j; k:
The objective function (1) minimizes the weighted
product Wk yjk , of k identical parallel stations at stage j.
Constraint set (2) handles the precedence relationship
between tasks that result from the technological con-
straints. Constraint set (3) ensures that each task is per-
formed exactly once. The capacity constraint set (4)
ensures that the work content assigned to each stage does
not exceed the associated capacity. Constraint set (5)
ensures that if a station is opened in stage j, the number of
parallel stations at this stage is unique.
The weight factor Wk , represents the cost of a stage with
k parallel stations, taking into consideration the addi-
tional equipment cost. It determines the outcome of line
design and the allocation of parallel stations. Selecting
different values for the weight factor Wk aids in achieving
different line design objectives while using parallel sta-
tions. When the only objective is to minimize the total
number of stations, without preferring sequential stations
to parallel stations the weight values are:
76 Bukchin and Rubinovitz

k X
Kmax X
n X
Kmax
Wk ¼ Wk1 ; k ¼ 2::Kmax : ti xijk  kyjk C 8j:
k1
k¼1 i¼1 k¼1

In this case, the weight values are proportional to the

The new constraint can be also written as
capacity content of the station. For example, if W1 ¼ 1
(for a single station), then, W2 ¼ 2 (two parallel stations), Xn

W3 ¼ 3 (three stations in parallel), and so on. This means
that the cost (weight factor) of n stations in parallel is
exactly n times larger than the cost of a single station. It
also means that creating an additional identical station in
parallel is equivalent to using an additional new sequen-
tial station on the line. This is usually the case in manual
assembly, where the manually operated cells do not re-
quire special (expensive) tools or equipment.
When trying to minimize the total number of stations,
while trying to minimize the number of parallel stations
as a secondary objective, the weights should be adjusted
as follows:
k problem can be considered as a special case of the line
Wk ¼ Wk1 þ e; k ¼ 2::Kmax ; ð7Þ
k1
where e is a small constant for breaking tie situations in
order to prefer a smaller number of parallel stations. The
constant e can also be interpreted as a small penalty cost
for using identical parallel stations. This is usually the
case when creating an additional identical station in
parallel requires purchasing (duplicating) some tools or
equipment that were not required when using an addi-
tional new sequential station on the line. Nevertheless, in
this case the additional cost is assumed to be much
smaller than the cost associated with opening an addi-
tional station.
When the cost of equipment duplication is very large,
only essential parallel stations are opened. In this case,
the only reason for adding stations in parallel is ‘long’
tasks, namely, tasks larger than the pre-defined cycle
time, the values of the weights are:
Wk ¼ A  Wk1 ; k ¼ 2::Kmax ; ð8Þ
where A is a large constant. In this case, the total number
of stations is minimized, but only essential parallel sta-
tions are formed, as needed to meet the production rate
when tasks with times longer than the required cycle time
are present. This is usually the case when creating an
additional identical station in parallel requires purchasing
(duplicating) some expensive tools or equipment that
were not required when using an additional new se-
quential station on the line.
2.3. Analogy to the multi-equipment selection
Let us define a new binary variable xijk , which equals one
if task i is assigned at stage j with a configuration of k
parallel stations. Consequently, constraint (4) is modified
as follows:
ti xijk  kyjk C 8j 8k; or alternatively
i¼1
X
n
ti
xijk  yjk C 8j; 8k: ð4aÞ
k
i¼1
The capacity constraint (4a) is analogous to a case where
there are several equipment alternatives for the assembly
process, and only one of them should be selected for each
stage. Each equipment alternative, k, performs task i, in
duration of ti =k. In other words, adding parallel stations
is equivalent to replacing the assembly equipment with
more efficient equipment, which may perform the as-
sembly operations at a faster rate. Hence, the above
design with equipment selection problem, addressed in
Bukchin and Tzur (2000). In order to complete the
modification of the model to the multi-equipment selec-
tion problem (P2), constraint sets (2) and (3) from (P1)
should be adapted as follows:
X
Jmax X
Jmax
r  xgrk  l  xhlk 8g; 8h; 8k; subject to g 2 Ph ;
r¼1 l¼1
ð2aÞ
Kmax X
X Jmax
xijk ¼ 1 8i: ð3aÞ
k¼1 j¼1
Based on the analogy between the two problems, a
branch and bound algorithm developed in Bukchin and
Tzur (2000) for the multi-equipment selection problem is
adopted to handle the current problem. The algorithm
principles are described in the next section.
3. Branch and bound algorithm
As was shown in the previous section, (P1) is a special
case of the line balancing problem with equipment al-
ternatives for minimizing equipment costs. In the general
problem, each task can be performed by at least one
equipment type, with a duration that is dependent on the
equipment type. In the current model, k stations in par-
allel are analogous to an equipment type that can per-
form task i in ti =k time units, with an equipment cost of
Wk .
A frontier search branch and bound algorithm was
developed for the general problem (Bukchin and Tzur,
2000). Throughout the algorithm, workstations are
opened sequentially, equipment types are selected and
placed in any newly opened workstation, and tasks to be
Weighted approach for assembly line design
performed by the selected equipment are assigned to the
last workstation opened in a given partial solution. The
algorithm ends when all tasks are assigned to worksta-
tions, and the obtained solution value is no larger than
the lower bound of all partial solutions.
The branch and bound algorithm requires large com-
puter resources in order to solve very large problems, and
therefore a heuristic is required for most real world
problems. According to the branch and bound procedure,
the node with the smallest lower bound is extended at
each iteration (jumptracking approach). However, some
of these nodes have a very small probability of eventually
providing the optimal solution, and their extension is
essential only for proving the optimality of the final so-
lution. In the proposed heuristic, the node selection rule is
modified, in order to avoid the extension of such nodes. A
heuristic control parameter is defined, which determines
how many nodes of the tree may be skipped. The detailed
algorithm and lower bounds developments are presented
in Bukchin and Tzur (2000).
W2
W3 (the values
4. Analysis of problem variations
4.1. Balancing improvement and design trade-offs
The introduction of identical parallel stations to the line
design leads to reduction of idle time and allows to im-
prove the line balance. This design alternative can be very
effective when high production rates are required from an
assembly. To meet the high production rates, the line
must be balanced for short cycle times, where obtaining a
good balance is more difficult. Using parallel stations
may provide good balancing solutions in such an envi-
ronment, and is more cost effective than constructing a
few separate lines with longer cycle times, an option
which is too expensive due to tooling and machines du-
plication. The benefits of using parallel stations to reduce
station idle times have been pointed out by numerous
researchers (for example Buxey (1974)). Others indicated
additional possible trade-offs and benefits of this design
alternative (for example Bard (1989); Askin and Zhou
(1997)).
We now present a small example, which illustrates the
advantages of using parallel stations in line design, and
demonstrates the use of weights in the objective function
in order to control the results. The objective is to mini-
mize the number of stations for a given cycle time of 60
time units. Figure 1 presents the input data of a problem
with 20 tasks, where at most three stations in parallel are
allowed. The precedence diagram of the product to be
assembled is presented on the right-hand side, and a table
of task durations is on the left-hand side.
A stage with two stations in parallel is considered here
as a single station, where it takes half of the time to
perform each task assigned to this stage. Hence, the task
77
durations in the second column are equal to half of the
time in the first column. The same rule is applied to a
stage with three parallel stations, and the resulting task
times are presented in the third column. It is important to
note that the decision on how many parallel stations are
allowed may be made for each task separately. The de-
signer may decide that some of the tasks require expen-
sive assembly equipment, and therefore, in order to avoid
equipment duplication, they should be performed in a
single station. In this case, he can leave the task duration
times in the second and third column empty, allowing
such tasks to be assigned only to a single sequential sta-
tion. The problem was optimally solved for three sets of
weights, and the solutions are presented in Table 1.
The solution of each problem is presented in three
columns: the first includes the number of stations with
and without paralleling, the second consists of the task
assignments to stations, and the third presents the accu-
mulated assembly time assigned to each station. Case C1
includes a set of weights where W1
of 100, 2000 and 30 000 were chosen here but any other
values that satisfy the above condition could be used as
well), which imposes a solution without stations in par-
allel, resulting in a configuration of 14 stations. Case C2
represents indifference between parallel and sequential
stations, by weighting each stage proportionally to its
capacity, Wk ¼ ðk=k  1ÞWk1 (using the weight values
100, 200 and 300). In this case the objective is to minimize
the capacity (total number of stations), while being in-
different to whether sequential or parallel stations are
used. The solution obtained includes 13 stations, most of
them in parallel. This solution is an improvement to the
solution of C1, but some of the parallel stations may not
be essential. In case C3, we use an objective function with
a small penalty for the paralleling situation, in favor of
solutions with sequential stations (the penalty used is
e ¼ 1, resulting in weight values of 100, 201, 302.5). In-
deed, the resulting solution includes 13 stations, as in the
solution of C2, but with fewer paralleling situations (only
one parallel station instead of six parallel stations in C2).
4.2. Long task constraints
Parallel stations are essential where there are tasks with a
duration longer than the required cycle time. Consider for
example a final assembly line of televisions, where in one
of the last stages the TV set should be operated for a
couple of hours as a testing phase. It is clear that if a
single sequential station will be used at this stage, the
testing phase will be the bottleneck of the line, and will
cause low throughput and high idle time in other stations.
In the actual TV assembly environment, we will probably
find at this stage many TV sets being tested in parallel,
implementing a situation of many stations in parallel.
Figure 2 shows such a situation, where stage j is the
testing stage, and the line cycle time is C time units.
78
Fig. 1. Input data of the paralleling example.
The capacity of stage j is m times C, where there are m
stations in parallel. If, for example, the line daily
throughput is 200 TV sets in an 8 hours shift (the cycle
time is equal to 2.4 minutes), and the testing time required
for each TV is 2 hours, then 50 stations of type j are
required to prevent blockage in stage j and meet the re-
quired production rate.
By making small changes in the input data of the
previous example, we can illustrate the paralleling situa-
tion with tasks having a duration longer than the required
cycle time. Let the duration of task 10 be 72 time units
and the duration of task 17 be 90 time units. Both tasks
are now longer than the cycle time (60 time units). In this
modified problem, a feasible solution must include par-
Bukchin and Rubinovitz
allel stations to meet the required cycle time. Yet, by
applying the different weight factors to control design
objectives, three different objective functions can be
achieved, as presented by the cases in Table 2.
In case C4, the problem objective enforces only essen-
tial paralleling, as required to meet the cycle time by the
long tasks. As a result, the optimal solution includes only
two parallel stations, one in stage 9 that performs task 10
(along with task 12), and the other in stage 11 that per-
forms task 17 (along with task 18). A total of 15 stations
are established in the solution of case C4. Case C5 is
equivalent to case C2, where the objective is to minimize
capacity subject to a given cycle time, a configuration of
up to three stations in parallel is allowed, and there is
Weighted approach for assembly line design 79
Table 1. Optimal solutions of the example problems C1–C3
Stage C1 C2 C3
k k
W1
W2
W3 Wk ¼ k1 Wk1 , k ¼ 2, 3 Wk ¼ k1 Wk1 þ e, k ¼ 2, 3

Parallel Tasks Station Parallel Tasks Station Parallel Tasks Station

stations time stations time stations time
1 1 1,4,7 42 2 2,5,8 120 1 2 60
2 1 2 60 2 1,3,9 108 1 5,8 60
3 1 5,8 60 1 6 48 1 1,9 54
4 1 9 42 1 11 60 1 3 54
5 1 3 54 2 4,7,10,13 114 1 11 60
6 1 6 48 3 12,14,15,16,17,18 180 1 6,14 60
7 1 11 60 2 19,20 102 1 4,16 60
8 1 14,16 48 2 7,10,12 114
9 1 10 60 1 13,15 60
10 1 12 48 1 17,18 48
11 1 13,15 60 1 19 48
12 1 17,18 48 1 20 54
13 1 19 48
14 1 20 54
14 stations (no paralleling) 13 stations (six parallel1) 13 station (one parallel1)
1
Note: the number of parallel stations counts additional identical stations used in parallel with the ‘base’ station (e.g., one parallel station indicates
the existence of two identical stations at the stage).

solving this model is capable of handling a wide range of

problems.

4.3. The effect of the problem parameters on the balancing

Fig. 2. Parallel stations for a long task situation.
indifference between stations in parallel and sequential
stations. The solution for this case includes five sets of
parallel stations and 14 stations in total, one station less
than in the solution for case C4. The solution of case C6,
in which a small penalty is applied for using parallel
stations (as in case C3), also has a total of 14 stations as
in C5, but there are only two sets of parallel stations, with
three identical stations in each set. The two sets of parallel
stations resolve the problem posed by tasks 10 and 17,
that have times longer than the cycle time.
These examples illustrate the way in which the weight
(cost) parameters can be used in order to change the
design objective of the problem to be solved. This use
provides the line designer with the flexibility to review
solutions for different design objectives, for a wide range
of problems involving parallel stations. The different de-
sign objectives are all represented by the same model (in
which only the weight parameters are modified), and as a
result the branch and bound algorithm designed for
improvement
In this section we examine how different problem para-
meters influence the balancing improvement that can be
achieved by using parallel stations. The purpose of this
examination is to check the potential for improvement of
the line efficiency, by using parallel stations, for a wide
range of problems with different characteristics. All ex-
periments were performed for problems with 20 tasks,
and four factors were defined for the experimentation:
1. F-ratio: The F-ratio is a measure for the flexibility in
creating different assembly sequences for a K elements
assembly task. It was described by Dar-El (1973), and
can be defined as follows:
Let pij be an element of a precedence matrix P, such
that: n
pij ¼ 1 if task i precedes task j,
0 otherwise.
Then, F-ratio ¼ 2Z=nðn  1Þ, where Z is the number
of zeroes in P, and n is the number of assembly tasks.
The F-ratio value is therefore between zero, when
there are no precedence constraints between tasks (any
sequence is feasible), and one, when only a single as-
sembly sequence is feasible. Assembly tasks are often
characterized by relatively low F-ratios. Hence, pre-
80 Bukchin and Rubinovitz
Table 2. Optimal solutions of the example problems C4–C6
Stage C4 C5 C6
k k
W1
W2
W3 Wk ¼ k1 Wk1 , k ¼ 2, 3 Wk ¼ k1 Wk1 þ e, k ¼ 2, 3

Parallel Tasks Station Parallel Tasks Station Parallel Tasks Station

stations time stations time stations time
1 1 1,4,7 42 2 2,5,8 120 1 2 60
2 1 2 60 2 1,3,9 108 1 5,8 60
3 1 5,8 60 1 11 60 1 1,9 54
4 1 9 42 3 4,6,7,10,13 174 1 3 54
5 1 3 54 1 12,14 60 1 11 60
6 1 6 48 3 15,16,17,18 180 3 4,6,7,10,13 174
7 1 11 60 2 19,20 102 1 12,14 60
8 1 14,16 48 3 15,16,17,18 180
9 2 10,12 120 1 19 48
10 1 13,15 48 1 20 54
11 2 17,18 108
12 1 19 48
13 1 20 54
15 stations (two parallel) 14 stations (seven parallel1) 14 stations (four parallel1)
1
Note: the number of parallel stations counts additional identical stations used in parallel with the ‘base’ station (e.g., one parallel station indicates
the existence of two identical stations at the stage).

cedence diagrams with F-ratios of 0.1, 0.3 and 0.5 were
generated in this study.
2. Average number of tasks per station (ATS): This para-
meter is equal to the ratio between the number of tasks
in the assembly and the minimal number of stations
required to meet the production rate. (The number of
stations can be calculated by the ratio of total as-
sembly time required and the cycle time.) The pa-
rameter was set to two and four tasks per station.
3. Variability of task duration (VTD): The duration of
every task was generated from a uniform distribution.
We examined a distribution with a small variance,
U ð0:8l, 1:2lÞ, and a distribution with a high variance
U ð0:4l, 1:6lÞ, where l is the expected value of the task
duration.
4. Maximal number of stations in parallel (MSP): Each
problem was solved for a maximal number of two,
three and four parallel stations.
For each experiment, three different precedence dia-
grams were generated, each with two instances of task
durations (total of six replications). In the first set of
experiments, the effect of the first three parameters on
the balancing improvement is examined. The dependent
variable, the balancing improvement, is equal to the ratio
between the number of stations obtained with paralleling
and the number of stations obtained with no parallel
stations. Since an optimal solution was obtained for both
cases, this value is always smaller than or equal to one.
Table 3 shows the ANOVA results, where the rows in
bold type denote the significant factors (p-value smaller
than 0.05). We can see that the effect of the F-ratio and
ATS is quite significant, as well as the interaction of the
two. As can be expected, the results show that parallel
stations are mostly desired in situations where a good
balance is difficult to achieve (low F-ratio and small cycle
time).

Table 3. ANOVA table of the balancing improvement

General MANOVA Summary of all effects; 1-F-ratio, 2-ATS, 3-VTD
Effect df effect MS effect df error MS error F-ratio p-value
1 2 0.015 750 204 0.003 749 4.2013 0.016 292
2 1 0.595 439 204 0.003 749 158.8323 0.000 000
3 1 0.000 329 204 0.003 749 0.0879 0.767 198
12 2 0.022 669 204 0.003 749 6.0469 0.002 810
13 2 0.004 240 204 0.003 749 1.1309 0.324 755
23 1 0.002 893 204 0.003 749 0.7718 0.380 686
123 2 0.001 009 204 0.003 749 0.2692 0.764 257
Weighted approach for assembly line design
Looking at Fig. 3, which demonstrates the F-Ratio-
ATS interaction, we can see that the effect of the F-ratio
seems much more significant for small ATS. No clear
effect is identified for large ATS (in particular we can see
that at the upper plot in Fig. 3). The reason for this may
be that for relatively large ATS values good balance may
be obtained without allowing parallel stations, and the
improvement due to paralleling is very small (less than
6% in our experiments). In this small range the effect of
the F-ratio is minor. In small ATS, on the other hand,
good balance is difficult to achieve, and the effect of the
F-ratio is much clearer.
We also examined the effect of the limitation on the
number of parallel stations on the balancing improve-
ment. Seventy-two problems were solved for each limi-
tation, giving a total of 288 problems. The graph in Fig. 4
shows the balancing improvement as a function of the
maximal number of parallel stations allowed.
Each point of the graph represents an average value of
the 72 problems solved. We can see that the marginal
Fig. 3. Balancing improvement as a function of the F-ratio and
the ATS.
Fig. 4. Balancing improvement as a function of the paralleling
limitation.
81
contribution of the paralleling to the balance solution
decreases with the number of parallel stations. In fact, we
can say that in this case the significant contribution is
obtained for adding the first parallel station (average
improvement of 8.4%), and there is very little contribu-
tion beyond that (additional improvement of 0.95 and
0.26% for adding the second and third parallel stations
respectively). We can assume that those values are de-
pendent on the problem parameters, and that another
problem set may have resulted in different values of the
improvements. However, the trend is quite intuitive, and
we can assume that this behavior of the balancing im-
provement will remain the same for almost any set of
problems. We then may conclude that when the reason
for paralleling is balancing improvement we should start
solving the problem for a small value of the maximal
number of parallel stations, and then increase this value
until no significant improvement is obtained.
5. Modification to the multi-equipment line balancing
problem with paralleling
The equivalence between the line balancing problem with
paralleling and a special case of the line balancing prob-
lem with equipment selection was discussed in Section 2.
In this section the integration of the two problems is
addressed, and an example is given.
Assume that there are m optional equipment types to
be assigned to stations. In each stage we can assign either
a single piece of equipment or several identical equip-
ment units. The problem is to select the required equip-
ment type for each stage and the number of parallel
stations containing this equipment, and to assign the
tasks to stations. The objective is to minimize the total
equipment costs. A few notations should be defined for
the formulation of the multi-equipment problem with
paralleling:
Wkm = the cost of k parallel stations with identical
equipment type m;
tim = the duration of task i when performed by equip-
ment type m;
8
< 1 if there are exactly k parallel stations in
yjkm = stage j with equipment type m,
:
0 otherwise;
8
< 1 if task i is performed by equipment type
xijm = at stage j,
:
0 otherwise;
M = the number of different equipment types.
The new formulation of the problem (P3) is then:
Jmax X
X Kmax X
M
ðP3Þ min Wkm yjkm ; ð1aÞ
j¼1 k¼1 m¼1
82 Bukchin and Rubinovitz
subject to performing a large number of assembly tasks (all tasks
X
Jmax X
M X
Jmax X
M in this example). A special case of this equipment type
j  xgjm  l  xhlm 8g; 8h; subject to g 2 Ph ; may be a human being, which will be considered from
j¼1 m¼1 l¼1 m¼1 now on without loss of generality.
ð2bÞ 2. Equipment type E1 : A fast assembly piece of equip-
ment characterized by short tasks’ duration.
X
Jmax X
M
xijm ¼ 1 8i; ð3bÞ 3. Equipment type E2 : The least expensive equipment.
j¼1 m¼1
The maximal number of parallel station of equipment
X
n X
M Kmax X
X M
types M, E1 , and E2 in each stage was set to three, two,
tim xijm  kyjkm C 8j; ð4bÞ
and two respectively. The input data of the task duration,
i¼1 m¼1 k¼1 m¼1
which is presented in Table 4 also refers to the maximal
X
Kmax X
M
number of parallel stations of each equipment type.
yjkm  1 8j; ð5aÞ Columns ‘M1 ’, ‘M2 ’ and ‘M3 ’ refer to task durations in a
k¼1 m¼1
single station, two and three parallel stations of the hu-
xijm ¼ 0; 1 8i; 8j; man worker; columns ‘E11 ’ and ‘E21 ’ refer to a single sta-
yjkm ¼ 0; 1 8j; 8k; 8m: tion and two parallel stations of equipment type E1 , and
columns ‘E12 ’ and ‘E22 ’ refer to a single station and two
parallel stations of equipment type E2 . In this example,
The formulation is a modification of original formu- every task may be performed in parallel stations where
lation of the assembly line balancing with paralleling the maximal number of parallel stations is limited by the
(P1). The objective function (1a) expresses the total equipment. In general, we can limit the maximal number
equipment cost of the assembly system. Constraint sets of parallel stations for each task independently by en-
(2b), (3b), (4b) and (5a) replace constraint sets (2), (3), (4) tering empty cells in the appropriate places in the dura-
and (5) respectively. tion matrix. We can see that the duration of three out of
The line balancing problem with multi-equipment and the 30 tasks (tasks 7, 18 and 28) is larger than the cycle
paralleling can be solved by the branch and bound al- time for all optional equipment types, namely, all feasible
gorithm, which was presented in Section 3. The weights in configurations should include parallel stations.
the objective function in addition of being control pa- The costs of the human worker and the two equipment
rameters have now also a practical meaning of the types are $100 000, $100 000 and $60 000 respectively. (It
equipment costs. In order to demonstrate the identical should be noted that although the cost of the human
solving procedure of both problem types, the following worker is different than the cost of automated assembly
example is presented. equipment, both can be translated into a total cost over
An assembly line has to be balanced for a product the life cycle of the assembly system.)
containing 30 assembly tasks while minimizing the The problem was solved according to case C6 (see
equipment costs. The precedence diagram of the product Table 2), where tasks longer than the cycle time exist and
is presented in Fig. 5. The line cycle time is 250 time units, the weights’ values are set according to Equation (6). In
as derived from the required production rate. this case the minimal equipment costs is obtained in the
Three equipment types are available for each station: optimal solution with a minimal number of parallel sta-
tions.
1. Equipment type M: A highly flexible piece of equip- An optimal solution for the problem was obtained, and
ment, namely, a piece of equipment that is capable of the minimal cost configuration is shown in Fig. 6. The

Fig. 5. Precedence diagram.

Weighted approach for assembly line design 83
Table 4. Task duration
M1 M2 M3 E11 E21 E12 E22
Task 1 54 27 18 64 32
Task 2 144 72 48 70 35
Task 3 138 69 46 160 80
Task 4 144 72 48 86 43 142 71
Task 5 24 12 8
Task 6 102 51 34
Task 7 300 150 100 380 190
Task 8 114 57 38 58 29 108 54
Task 9 36 18 12 14 7
Task 10 114 57 38 70 35 110 55
Task 11 84 42 28
Task 12 72 36 24 44 22
Task 13 72 36 24 28 14 70 35
Task 14 24 12 8 12 6
Task 15 90 45 30
Task 16 72 36 24 42 21
Task 17 60 30 20 68 34
Task 18 360 180 120
Task 19 36 18 12 42 21
Task 20 114 57 38 64 32
Task 21 96 48 32 86 43
Task 22 24 12 8 14 7
Task 23 30 15 10 30 15
Task 24 78 39 26 48 24
Task 25 12 6 4 12 6
Task 26 270 135 90 290 145
Task 27 78 39 26 50 25 94 47
Task 28 90 45 30
Task 29 150 75 50 154 77
Task 30 36 18 12 22 11

the fifth column where in stages with parallel stations the

effective station time, defined as the division of the ac-
cumulated station time by the number of station, appears
in the parenthesis. The equipment cost of each stage is
shown in the sixth column and the total equipment costs,
Fig. 6. Optimal assembly line configuration.
$1100 000 is presented at the bottom.

assembly line contained 10 stages; seven stages include a

single station and thee stages include two parallel sta-
tions. All optional equipment is used, where in four stages
(six stations) a manual worker is assigned, in four stages
(five stations) the less expensive equipment is assigned
and in other two stages (three stations) the fast equipment
is selected.
The quantitative data of the optimal solution are pre-
sented in Table 5. The first three columns show the stage
number, the selected equipment for each stage and the
number of stations in each stage. The assembly tasks
assigned to each stage are presented in the fourth column,
and not surprisingly we can see that all three tasks with a
duration larger than the cycle time (tasks 7, 18 and 26) are
assigned in stages with two parallel stations (stages 4, 6
and 8). The accumulated time in each station appears in
6. Summary and conclusions
The assembly line design with station paralleling and
equipment selection has been addressed in this paper.
After presenting the basic formulation of the station
paralleling, a modified model that takes into consider-
ation costs associated with the trade-off between serial
and parallel stations is presented. Changing the costs
parameters enables us to address a typical assembly line
design problem, in which the assembly system may be
labor or equipment intensive and where tasks may be
larger than the cycle time. An analogy between the par-
allel station problem and the assembly system design with
equipment selection is shown, where the former problem
is found to be a special case of the latter. The advantage
84 Bukchin and Rubinovitz
Table 5. Optimal solution
Stage Equipment type Number of stations Tasks Acc. time Cost (· $000)
1 E2 1 1,2 224 60
2 M 1 5,6,9 234 100
3 E1 1 2,4,10 226 100
4 E2 2 7,8 488 (244) 120
5 M 1 11,15,17 234 100
6 M 2 14,18,20 498 (249) 200
7 E2 1 13,21,23 186 60
8 M 2 16,19,22,24,25,26 492 (246) 200
9 E2 1 27,29 248 60
10 M 1 28,30 126 100
Total cost: $1100
(· $000)

of this observation is two-fold; a solution approach for
the equipment selection problem can be used for solving
the parallel station problem, and moreover, the two
problems can be combined and be efficiently solved. The
balancing improvement associated with applying parallel
stations is examined through a wide range of experiments.
Results show that the flexibility in the order of the as-
sembly operations (expressed by the F-ratio measure) and
the cycle time (expressed by the ATS measure) have sig-
nificant effects on the balancing improvement. We can
state that parallel stations are especially needed when a
good balance is difficult to obtain due to small cycle times
or low flexibility in the assembly process. Another inter-
esting observation concerns the relationship between the
paralleling limitation (maximal number of stations in
parallel in a single stage) and the balancing improvement.
Results show that the first station in parallel contributes
the main improvement (8.4% on average) while the
contribution of additional parallel stations is quite small
(0.95 and 0.26% are associated with the third and fourth
parallel stations respectively). The importance of this
observation results from the fact that the branch and
bound algorithm run time is highly dependent on this
parameter. For practical problems, based on this result of
diminishing returns one may experiment with low values
(of one or two) stations in parallel. In cases where many
parallel stations are needed due to long task times, such
as in the testing stage of the TV line example, it will be
reasonable to solve this part of the problem separately,
without combining additional tasks with short task times
into such stations.
The combined problem, which incorporates the station
paralleling with equipment selection problem is discussed
in the paper, an ILP formulation is developed and an
optimal solution of an example problem is presented. We
believe that the design approach presented here is suitable
for handling various practical problems. Nevertheless,
much further research should be done in combining more
aspects of practical design problem, such as the multi-
mixed-model environment, stochastic assembly times and
machine breakdown.
Acknowledgement
This work was performed in part while Dr. Bukchin was
on a sabbatical at the Grado Department of Industrial
and Systems Engineering, Virginia Tech, and Dr. Rubi-
novitz was on leave at the Department of Industrial En-
gineering, Tel Aviv University. The authors wish to thank
both departments for the hospitality during their stay.
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Biographies
Joseph Bukchin is a faculty member of the Department of Industrial
Engineering at Tel Aviv University. He received his B.Sc., M.Sc. and
D.Sc. degrees in Industrial Engineering from the Technion, Israel In-
stitute of Technology. He is a member of the IIE and INFORMS. He
was a visiting professor at the Grado Department of Industrial and
Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. His main research interests are
in the areas of assembly systems design, assembly line balancing, fa-
cility design, design of cellular manufacturing systems, operational
scheduling as well as work station design with respect to cognitive and
physical aspects of the human operator.
Jacob Rubinovitz is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Industrial
Engineering and Management of the Technion. He holds a B.Sc and
M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from the Technion, and a Ph.D. in
Industrial Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University. He is a
senior member of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE), the Society
of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), and the Israel Society for Com-
puter Aided Design and Manufacturing. He established the Robotics
and Computer Integrated Manufacturing Lab at the Faculty of In-
dustrial Engineering and Management at the Technion, and served as
its head between 1988–1995. He has held visiting appointments at the
Industrial Engineering departments of the University of Pittsburgh
(1995–1996) and the Tel Aviv University (2001–2002). The research
focus of Dr. Rubinovitz is optimization of design and operation of
flexible computer-integrated manufacturing systems and assembly
systems.
Contributed by the Facilities Layout and Material Handling Department