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Interactive Excel-Based Procedure for Line Balancing

Author

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  • John F. Wellington

    (Indiana University—Purdue University Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne, Indiana 46805)

  • Stephen A. Lewis

    (Mongrel Works, LLC, Columbus, Ohio 43209)

Abstract

The assignment of tasks to workstations that results in the assembly of an item or provision of a service is a common topic of discussion in operations management (OM) courses. In this paper, we present an interactive Excel spreadsheet assisted procedure for assigning the required tasks. The procedure actively engages the student in the process and serves as a tool for learning how to effectively and efficiently assign the tasks to a series (line) of connected workstations. The Excel implementation provides more flexibility in selecting tasks than textbook or other Excel based methods that rely on certain priority rules, and is considerably easier to use than math programming models. The procedure and its spreadsheet implementation are illustrated and discussed, with an example.

Suggested Citation

  • John F. Wellington & Stephen A. Lewis, 2018. "Interactive Excel-Based Procedure for Line Balancing," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 19(1), pages 23-35, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orited:v:19:y::i:1:p:23-35
    DOI: 10.1287/ited.2017.0192
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brent Snider & Nancy Southin & Sherry Weaver, 2017. "Student Peer Evaluated Line Balancing Competition," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 17(2), pages 43-48, January.
    2. 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.
    3. Cliff T. Ragsdale & Evelyn C. Brown, 2004. "On Modeling Line Balancing Problems in Spreadsheets," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 4(2), pages 45-48, January.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Boysen, Nils & Fliedner, Malte & Scholl, Armin, 2008. "Assembly line balancing: Which model to use when," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(2), pages 509-528, February.
    7. Andrew J Mason, 2013. "SolverStudio: A New Tool for Better Optimisation and Simulation Modelling in Excel," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 14(1), pages 45-52, September.
    8. Sarah G. Nurre & Jeffery D. Weir, 2017. "Interactive Excel-Based Gantt Chart Schedule Builder," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 17(2), pages 49-57, January.
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    Cited by:

    1. Battaïa, Olga & Dolgui, Alexandre, 2022. "Hybridizations in line balancing problems: A comprehensive review on new trends and formulations," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 250(C).
    2. Taher Ahmadi & Bo van der Rhee, 2023. "Multiobjective Line Balancing Game: Collaboration and Peer Evaluation," INFORMS Transactions on Education, INFORMS, vol. 23(3), pages 179-195, May.

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