Assembly line balancing with smoothed work station assignments

In this paper, a methodology for balancing assembly lines with smoothed work station assignments is presented. Smoothed work station assignment constitutes an additional criterion during the design and development of assembly lines characterized by a large number of tasks, a small variation of task times and a small number of precedence constraints with regard to the total number of tasks to be perfromed. Assembly lines having the above features are common in industrial environments. In those cases the application of the suggested methodology leads to a more efficient organization of the assembly line. This is confirmed by the successful application of the suggested methodology in redesigning the assembly line of a jeep-type vehicle in a major Greek company.