Design efficient assembly systems with an exact, practical approach to selecting work stations and assigning tasks.
This book describes a structured way to minimize total cost while meeting a preset production rate, using a zero-one integer program to choose from candidate stations and allocate tasks.
The discussion centers on the design problem for automated assembly systems, with an example of automobile alternator assembly to illustrate the model. It explains how tasks must precede others, how cycle-based scheduling works at each station, and how costs and times accumulate across the system. The material also covers solution methods, including relaxations and a mixed-integer programming approach, to obtain bounds and feasible solutions.
What you’ll experience
- A clear formulation for selecting work stations and assigning tasks to meet production targets at minimum cost.
- How to model task precedences, station capacities, and the flow of work across a network of stations.
- Techniques for estimating operating times and costs, plus ways to obtain lower and upper bounds on the optimum.
- Practical notes on extensions and refinements used in real-world assembly design projects.
Ideal for design engineers and manufacturing managers who want a rigorous tool to balance economics and feasibility when building or upgrading automated assembly lines.