Designing Product Layouts: Assembly Line Balancing

Product Layout: (Repetitive Process)

• A product layout, production lines or assembly lines- are design to allow a direct
material flow

• Product layout that uses standard processing operations to achieve smooth, rapid and
high-volume flow.

• The manufacturing unit follows a sequence of operations, and possible to utilize a fixed path
material handling equipment.

• The line are referred to the production line or assembly line.

• Product layout achieve a high degree of labor and equipment utilization.

• Repetitive processing can be machine placed (automatic car wash, automatic assembly)
worker placed (McDonald, Burger King) Customer placed ( Cafeteria line)
 Designing Product Layouts: Assembly Line Balancing

• The goal of a product layout is to arrange workers or machines in the sequence that
operations need to be performed.
WS1 WSn
Final Assembly
Input materials product
WS2

Advantages
• Production is much faster
• Smooth flow of materials from one workstation to next workstation
• Small in process inventories
• Total production time/unit
• Reduce material handling
 Designing Product Layouts: Assembly Line Balancing

• In a product layout workers and machines are arranged in a line according to the
sequence of operations required for assembling or making a product.

• The assembly line is used for producing high volumes of standardized products.

• The job is broken down into smallest portion is called tasks.

• The layout attempts to group the tasks and assign them to workstations in such a
manner that the time taken at each workstation to complete the tasks is same.
 Assembly Line Balancing:

• The process of assigning tasks to workstations in such a way that the workstations have
approximately equal time requirements.
Objectives:
1. Minimize the idle time
2. Minimize the number of workstations
3. Effective flow in the assembly line

Division of work into task:

Precedence relationship: The first step of line balancing is to define precedence
relationships. The precedence relationships also include any restrictions.

For example: a part that is hot cannot be immediately painted and so the heating and
painting work elements cannot be performed at the same workstations.
 Cycle time or Takt time:
• Time spend by each unit at each workstations.
• Frequency at which finished parts come out of the assembly line.
CT= (total available production time/ total number of units to be produced)

Example: 240 units of a product to be produced per day (8 hours)

CT= (8x60)/240 = 2 minutes
Example: Suppose the fabricate work divided up to six tasks with precedence relationships
as shown:
5min 8min 2min 1min 3min 4min

• Minimum cycle time is equal to the longest task time = 8 minutes

• Maximum cycle time = 23 minutes

• Tmax ≤ Cycle Time ≤ ∑i Ti

Number of workstations( theoretical no. of minimum workstations)

WSmin = (Sum of tasks times/ Cycle times)

• Example: If the product takes 11 minutes to complete and the cycle time is 3 minutes then
WSmin = 11/3 = 3.66 = 4
• The number of workstation must always be round off to the next higher value.
Efficiency of the line:

Line Efficiency ={ (Sum of task times)/(no. of workstations x cycle time)} x 100

Example: = 40/(5 x 9) = 88.8 %

Balance delay: (1- line efficiency)= 1- 88.8 = 11.2%

___________ _________
Smoothness Index= √ ∑ (CT- ∑ ti )2 = √ (idle time)2
Steps for Assembly Line Balancing

1. Draw precedence diagram

2. Find cycle time or takt time

3. Find no. of workstation ( theoretically)

4. Select and use heuristic rule

• Longest operational time

• Short operational time

5. Determine efficiency
 Problem:
• The assembly of a product involves 11 activities. The duration and the precedence are
given below. Set up an assembly line to assemble 40 units of product in a 8 hour working
per day.
Task Time( minutes) Immediate
Predecessor
1 3 -
2 2 1
3 4 2
4 3 1
5 5 4
6 6 3,5
7 8 6
8 4 6
9 5 6
10 6 8
11 4 7,9,10
a) Draw the precedence diagram for the assembly process.

b) What is the cycle time/ takt time for the assembly process.

c) Find out the theoretical minimum of number of stations.

d) Assign tasks to work stations in order to meet production requirements.

e) Compute the efficiency of the assembly line you have designed.

 Problem 2
A computer manufacturer needs to design assembly stations in the factory where the
cabinet housing the hard disk, mother boards and other accessories is to be made. The
factory currently works for one shift of 8 hours. The tasks and their durations are
given in table:
Task Description Precedence Duration
(Seconds)
A Assemble and position the base - 70
unit
B Install hard Disk A 80
C Install mother board A 40
D Insert ports A 20
E Install speaker A 40
F Connect relevant modules to B,C 30
mother boards and disk
G Install controller C 50
H Visually inspect and close with F,G,D,E 50
a cover plate
a) If the cycle time is 80 seconds, what will the daily production of cabinets be?
b) If the desired production rate is 320 cabinets per day, what is the maximum
permissible cycle time?
c) What is the maximum and minimum number of workstations required to maintain this
daily production rate?
d) Design an assembly set-up with desired workstations? What are the key inferences
of this exercise?
e) If the cycle time is 80 seconds, compute the efficiency of the assembly line.
 Home Exercise
The tasks given in the table are to be performed on an assembly line.
Task Time( seconds) Immediate
Predecessor
A 20 -
B 7 A
C 22 B
D 20 B
E 10 D
F 15 C
G 16 E, F
H 8 G
a) If the line works for 7 hours per day and the demand is 800 units per day,
what is the cycle time?
a) Balance the line using LOT, what is the line efficiency?
b) What change would you make if the demand fell to 750 units per day?
c) What change would you make if the demand increased to 1000 units per day?