Productivity improvement of a hose assembly plant by the application of an effective line balancing technique

Abstract

The primary objective of a line balancing problem is to assign the individual work elements to workstations so that all workers have an equal amount of work while simultaneously achieving the specified production rate of the line. This paper presents the implementation of assembly line balancing techniques to enhance the throughput of a hose assembly line. Various assembly line models such as Single Model Line (SML), Multi-Model Parallel Line (MMPL) and Mixed Model Line (MML) are compared and the most efficient model is implemented. Standard time, idle time and line efficiency were calculated considering scenarios of the above three models. It was found that mixed model assembly line was the most effective when compared to the other models. The standard time for the mixed model assembly line was calculated to be 593.59 seconds. Mixed model assembly line had an efficiency of 88% which would lead to enhanced productivity. It was recommended to set-up a new assembly line based on mixed model assembly line principles.