Production Engineering-Research and Development, cilt.1, sa.1, ss.1-10, 2024 (ESCI)
This research presents a novel method for optimizing
the design of assembly lines (ALs) through the combined consideration of two
strategic choice problems: part feeding with supermarkets (PFS) and the simple
assembly line balancing problem (SALBP) under learning effect (LE). By doing
the same tasks, the production worker(s) in various realistic scenarios
continuously develop their skills. As a result, if a task is processed later,
its processing time decreases. The influence of LE on two decision problems—the
optimum number of stations in a SALBP and the optimum number of supermarkets
serving the lines—is investigated in this paper. For the study, mathematical
modeling for supermarket location and the COMSOAL algorithm for SALBP are
suggested. The well-known test problems are addressed by these methods in the
literature. The findings show that the LE decreased the number of supermarkets,
the number of stations in SALBP, and the overall cost of PFS, both directly and
indirectly.