Designing parallel assembly lines

In this paper, alternative assembly line design strategies for a single product are discussed. The problem occurs when the production volume is substantially high and there are more operators needed than the number of assembly operations. The objective is to determine the number of assembly lines with minimum total manpower. It is allowed to have multiple assembly lines with identical configuration. A 3-phase methodology is proposed; 1) assembly line balancing, 2) determining parallel stations, 3) determining parallel lines. Later, the proposed procedure is illustrated with a numerical example.