IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/navres/v50y2003i1p31-57.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The stochastic U‐line balancing problem

Author

Listed:
  • Franco Guerriero
  • John Miltenburg

Abstract

A U‐line arranges tasks around a U‐shaped production line and organizes them into stations that can cross from one side of the line to the other. In addition to improving visibility and communication between operators on the line, which facilitates problem‐solving and quality improvement, U‐lines can reduce the total number of operators required on the line and make rebalancing the line easier compared to the traditional, straight production line. This paper studies the (type 1) U‐line balancing problem when task completion times are stochastic. Stochastic completion times occur when differences between operators cause completion times to vary somewhat and when machine processing times vary. A recursive algorithm is presented for finding the optimal solution when completion times have any distribution function. An equivalent shortest path network is also presented. An improvement for the special case of normally distributed task completion times is given. A computational study to determine the characteristics of instances that can be solved by the algorithms shows that they are able to solve instances of practical size (like the 114 Japanese and U.S. U‐lines studied in a literature review paper). © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2003

Suggested Citation

  • Franco Guerriero & John Miltenburg, 2003. "The stochastic U‐line balancing problem," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(1), pages 31-57, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:navres:v:50:y:2003:i:1:p:31-57
    DOI: 10.1002/nav.10043
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/nav.10043
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/nav.10043?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Allan L. Gutjahr & George L. Nemhauser, 1964. "An Algorithm for the Line Balancing Problem," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 11(2), pages 308-315, November.
    2. Nakade, Koichi & Ohno, Katsuhisa, 1999. "An optimal worker allocation problem for a U-shaped production line," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 353-358, April.
    3. Edward P. C. Kao, 1976. "A Preference Order Dynamic Program for Stochastic Assembly Line Balancing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(10), pages 1097-1104, June.
    4. Edward P. C. Kao & Maurice Queyranne, 1982. "On Dynamic Programming Methods for Assembly Line Balancing," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 30(2), pages 375-390, April.
    5. Robert L. Carraway, 1989. "A Dynamic Programming Approach to Stochastic Assembly Line Balancing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(4), pages 459-471, April.
    6. Moshe Sniedovich, 1981. "Analysis of a Preference Order Assembly Line Problem," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(9), pages 1067-1080, September.
    7. Michael Held & Richard M. Karp & Richard Shareshian, 1963. "Assembly-Line Balancing---Dynamic Programming with Precedence Constraints," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 11(3), pages 442-459, June.
    8. Roger V. Johnson, 1988. "Optimally Balancing Large Assembly Lines with "Fable"," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(2), pages 240-253, February.
    9. Steven T. Hackman & Michael J. Magazine & T. S. Wee, 1989. "Fast, Effective Algorithms for Simple Assembly Line Balancing Problems," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 37(6), pages 916-924, December.
    10. F. Brian Talbot & James H. Patterson & William V. Gehrlein, 1986. "A Comparative Evaluation of Heuristic Line Balancing Techniques," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(4), pages 430-454, April.
    11. Linus Schrage & Kenneth R. Baker, 1978. "Dynamic Programming Solution of Sequencing Problems with Precedence Constraints," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 26(3), pages 444-449, June.
    12. Thomas R. Hoffmann, 1992. "Eureka: A Hybrid System for Assembly Line Balancing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 38(1), pages 39-47, January.
    13. .Ilker Baybars, 1986. "A Survey of Exact Algorithms for the Simple Assembly Line Balancing Problem," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(8), pages 909-932, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Emel Kızılkaya Aydoğan & Yılmaz Delice & Uğur Özcan & Cevriye Gencer & Özkan Bali, 2019. "Balancing stochastic U-lines using particle swarm optimization," Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 97-111, January.
    2. Diefenbach, Johannes & Stolletz, Raik, 2022. "Stochastic assembly line balancing: General bounds and reliability-based branch-and-bound algorithm," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 302(2), pages 589-605.
    3. Pirogov, Aleksandr & Gurevsky, Evgeny & Rossi, André & Dolgui, Alexandre, 2021. "Robust balancing of transfer lines with blocks of uncertain parallel tasks under fixed cycle time and space restrictions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 290(3), pages 946-955.
    4. Daniel Leitold & Agnes Vathy-Fogarassy & Janos Abonyi, 2019. "Empirical working time distribution-based line balancing with integrated simulated annealing and dynamic programming," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 27(2), pages 455-473, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Scholl, Armin & Becker, Christian, 2006. "State-of-the-art exact and heuristic solution procedures for simple assembly line balancing," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 168(3), pages 666-693, February.
    2. Boysen, Nils & Fliedner, Malte, 2008. "A versatile algorithm for assembly line balancing," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 184(1), pages 39-56, January.
    3. Klein, Robert & Scholl, Armin, 1996. "Maximizing the production rate in simple assembly line balancing -- A branch and bound procedure," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 367-385, June.
    4. Battaïa, Olga & Dolgui, Alexandre, 2013. "A taxonomy of line balancing problems and their solutionapproaches," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 259-277.
    5. Becker, Christian & Scholl, Armin, 2006. "A survey on problems and methods in generalized assembly line balancing," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 168(3), pages 694-715, February.
    6. Scholl, Armin & Klein, Robert, 1999. "Balancing assembly lines effectively - A computational comparison," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 114(1), pages 50-58, April.
    7. Miltenburg, John, 1998. "Balancing U-lines in a multiple U-line facility," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 109(1), pages 1-23, August.
    8. Christian Blum, 2008. "Beam-ACO for Simple Assembly Line Balancing," INFORMS Journal on Computing, INFORMS, vol. 20(4), pages 618-627, November.
    9. Vilà, Mariona & Pereira, Jordi, 2013. "An enumeration procedure for the assembly line balancing problem based on branching by non-decreasing idle time," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 229(1), pages 106-113.
    10. Daniel Leitold & Agnes Vathy-Fogarassy & Janos Abonyi, 2019. "Empirical working time distribution-based line balancing with integrated simulated annealing and dynamic programming," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 27(2), pages 455-473, June.
    11. Fleszar, Krzysztof & Hindi, Khalil S., 2003. "An enumerative heuristic and reduction methods for the assembly line balancing problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 145(3), pages 606-620, March.
    12. Fatih Ugurdag, H. & Rachamadugu, Ram & Papachristou, Christos A., 1997. "Designing paced assembly lines with fixed number of stations," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 102(3), pages 488-501, November.
    13. Urban, Timothy L. & Chiang, Wen-Chyuan, 2006. "An optimal piecewise-linear program for the U-line balancing problem with stochastic task times," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 168(3), pages 771-782, February.
    14. Peeters, Marc & Degraeve, Zeger, 2006. "An linear programming based lower bound for the simple assembly line balancing problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 168(3), pages 716-731, February.
    15. Bautista, Joaquín & Pereira, Jordi, 2011. "Procedures for the Time and Space constrained Assembly Line Balancing Problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 212(3), pages 473-481, August.
    16. Bukchin, Yossi & Raviv, Tal, 2018. "Constraint programming for solving various assembly line balancing problems," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 57-68.
    17. Aase, Gerald R. & Olson, John R. & Schniederjans, Marc J., 2004. "U-shaped assembly line layouts and their impact on labor productivity: An experimental study," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 156(3), pages 698-711, August.
    18. Sprecher, Arno, 2000. "SALBLIB: Challenging instances for assembly line balancing," Manuskripte aus den Instituten für Betriebswirtschaftslehre der Universität Kiel 526, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre.
    19. Amen, Matthias, 2006. "Cost-oriented assembly line balancing: Model formulations, solution difficulty, upper and lower bounds," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 168(3), pages 747-770, February.
    20. Boysen, Nils & Fliedner, Malte & Scholl, Armin, 2007. "A classification of assembly line balancing problems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 183(2), pages 674-693, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:navres:v:50:y:2003:i:1:p:31-57. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1520-6750 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.