Assembly Line Balancing Questions -II
Assembly Line Balancing Questions -II
(OP)
Can someone please guide me for a high variety and demand mix environment, where cycles times are varying up to 200% with different product variants, how should one go ahead about balancing the lines? Do you take peak cycle times at the stations or consider an average or try to take a mode value??
(The line involves just one machine – wave solder to solder boards in a big batch and rest of it is a manual assembly line where we are assembling components into a circuit board. The cycle times shoots up between a simple and a complex board and also based on the technology – surface mount or through-hole. I have total 5 station and due to the precedence it is difficult to distribute work load around.)
Thanks for your help.
(The line involves just one machine – wave solder to solder boards in a big batch and rest of it is a manual assembly line where we are assembling components into a circuit board. The cycle times shoots up between a simple and a complex board and also based on the technology – surface mount or through-hole. I have total 5 station and due to the precedence it is difficult to distribute work load around.)
Thanks for your help.





RE: Assembly Line Balancing Questions -II
1. Purchase one of the more reasonable discrete event simulation packages (e.g., www.simul8.com has one that I was interested in at one time). This will allow you to build a virtual assembly sequence model with cycle times, queue lengths, resource scheduling, etc. Run the simulation and then do quick "what-if" analyses to optimize...up to a certain level. This is the dumb MechEngr's way of doing Classical IE work without the knowledge. For example, you may find that multiplying the long-cycle time stations and putting in sufficient queue lengths will smooth out your flow. I typically found that going through those variables will generate a "resonance" point of max throughput.
2. If you pursue a Lean one-piece flow philosophy, then it's necessary to do the Takt-time thing. Might not be practical in a board shop environment, but look at www.lean.org for resources.
TygerDawg
RE: Assembly Line Balancing Questions -II
Good luck
RE: Assembly Line Balancing Questions -II
Thansk for your motivation.