Concept of Line Balancing: Assembly Line Balancing is associated with a product layout in which products are processed as they pass through a line of work centres. It means balancing the production line or assembly line for producing same amount of the work. [1] An Assembly line can be considered as a Production sequence, where parts are assembled together to form an end product. [2] In Assembly lines the operations are carried out at different work stations situated along the line. [3] Line balancing is the appointment of sequential work activities into work stations in order to gain a high utilization of labor and equipment so as to minimize the idle time. [4] There are different balancing methods are used to solve the line balancing problems such as Heuristic Method, Rank Position Weightage Method, Linear Programming, Dynamic Programming and Computerized Methods.
Necessity/Requirement of Line Balancing:
[1] To distribute the tasks evenly at every work station so that the idle time of men and machines is distributed equally.
[2] To minimize the idle time of men’s and machines in line.
[3] To provide perfect balance when the assignments provide no idle time.
[4] To group the work and workers.
[5] To obtain an optimum balance of capacities on assembly line.