RALB – A Heuristic Algorithm for Design and Balancing of Robotic Assembly Lines

Abstract

This paper describes an heuristic approach for design and balancing of a robotic assembly line. The objective of RALB (Robotic Assembly Line Balancing) algorithm is to balance the assembly line, by allocating equal amount of work to the stations on the line, while assigning the most efficient robot type, out of several different types of robots available for the assembly task, to each workstation, and minimizing the number of workstations and robots used. RALB uses heuristics to limit and guide a Branch and Bound frontier starch, thus leading to solution of very large or difficult problems. A recommendation of the optimal set of heuristic rules is made based on results of extensive testing of RALB with a variety of assembly problems.