Line Balancing

• The technique employed for design of product layouts

• Estimation of exact number of resources and the sequence of
resources required
• Tasks are optimally combined without violating precedence
constraints and certain number of workstations designed to
complete the tasks

available work time

Cycle time 
Actual production

Number of theoretical workstatio ns, N T 

 task times
Cycle time

Total task time

Average Resources utilization 
(N A stations)  cycle time
Line Balancing Example

Task Time Required Precedes • Company operates one shift per day
(in min.)
• Available time per shift is 450 minutes
A 2.2 B, C, D
B 3.4 E • Production rate is 75 units/day
C 1.7 E
D 4.1 F
E 2.7 F
F 3.3 G
G 2.6 --

Cycle time = 450/75 = 6 minutes/part

NT = 20/6 = 3.33 = 4 stations

Precedence Diagram

A C

D F G
 Task Assignment
Time Elig. Will Task Idle
Station Avail. Tasks Fit? Assign. Time
1 6.0 A A A
3.8 B,C,D B,C B
0.4 C,D -- -- 0.4
2 6.0 C,D C,D D
1.9 C C C
0.2 E -- -- 0.2
3 6.0 E E E
3.3 F F F 0.0
4 6.0 G G G 3.4
Line Balancing Solution

Station 3
Station 1 B

A C

Station 2
Station 4

D F G