Line Balancing

Essentially, line balancing is leveling the workload across all processes in a cell or value stream to
remove bottlenecks and excess capacity. Line balancing is a process of deciding how to assign tasks to
workstations; and the goal of line balancing is to obtain task groupings that represent approximately
equal time requirements. This can be achieved by matching the production rate or cycle time after all
the wastes have been removed to the Takt time at each process of the value stream.

Line balancing minimizes idle time along the line and results in high utilization of labor and equipment
because idle time will occur if task times are not equal among workstations; wherein some stations are
capable of producing at higher rates than others. These fast stations will experience periodic weights for
the output from the slower stations or else be forced into idleness to avoid buildups of work between
stations.

Unbalanced production lines are undesirable in terms of inefficient utilization of labor and equipment,
and because they may create morale problems at the slower stations of workers who must work
continuously.

What is an assembly line?

An assembly line is a product layout dedicated to combining the components of a good or service that
has been created previously. The first moveable assembly line was created by Ford to manufacture the
Ford Model T. Ford installed a capstan and a thick cable to move the cars between assembly stations.
Before this development, cars were manufactured in a fixed-position layout, where materials and
workers had to be moved to the car’s location. Because the new “drag line” pulled the vehicles to
various workstations, the workers stayed in one place, and the cars changed locations for the
appropriate assembly task. With this new assembly line, the time needed to manufacture a car was
reduced from 13 to 6 hours, decreasing the car’s price, and thereby allowing many Americans to afford a
new car.

Through this technique, the recommended way to manufacture products that are massed-produced is
by using flow or assembly lines. Flow lines are used to produce individual components and then
assembly lines are used to assemble the components into worthwhile products. These systems consist
of workstations dedicated to the progressive manufacturer and assembly of parts and are integrated
using materials handling devices that allow parts to move from machine to machine, or workstation to
workstation.

However, for many assemblies that consists of a large number of tasks like in a typical manufacturing
workstation layout, there are a large number of ways to group tasks together into individual
workstations while still ensuring the proper sequence of work. And the best way to group tasks together
is through an assembly line balancing technique. Assembly Line Balancing is a technique to group tasks
among workstations so that each workstation has in the ideal case, the same amount of work. Assembly
line balancing focuses on organizing work efficiently in flow shops.

For example, if it took 90 seconds per unit to assemble an alarm clock and the work was divided evenly
among 3 workstations, then each workstation would be assigned 30 second of work content per unit.
Here, there are no idle time per workstation, and the output of the first workstation immediately
becomes the input to the next workstation. Technically, there is no bottleneck workstation and the flow
of parts through the assembly line is constant and continuous. However, in reality, this is seldom
possible so the objective is to minimize the imbalance among workstations while trying to achieve a
desired output rate.

Steps in line balancing technique:

1. Define the tasks and their times.

2. Specify the precedence relationship of the tasks.
3. Determine the Takt time. (Takt Time (TT) = Available Work Time / Demand Forecast)
4. Calculate the minimum number of workstations. (Min. no. of workstations (N) = Total Processing
Time / Takt Time
5. Choose a tasks assignment rule. There are two types of assignment rules: (1) longest task time,
(2) most following task.
6. Assign task in the workstation until the assigned time is equal to the takt time or until it is no
longer possible to assign a task owing to the restrictions of time or sequence
7. Determine the longest cycle time from all workstations.
8. Calculate the balance delay and efficiency of the assembly line.
Longest Task Time Method

-we add tasks to a workstation one at a time in the order of task precedence; however, if two or more
tasks coincide with the criterion, the one with the longest task time is selected.

Example:

Precedence Relationship with task times:

Most Following Task Method

-we add tasks to a workstation one at a time based on the task with the largest total number of
following tasks.

Example: