International School of Business & Media; Kolkata

Assembly line balancing

Abhijit Samanta 12/27/2010

P a g e | 2

Question: -

Design a 10 station assembly line with 10 stations of your choice, leading to a control cycle time of

your choice and give the following details.

1. Station time?

2. Cycle time?

3. Balanced Delay?

4. At what rate of time in minutes a product will come out of the assembly line?

Abhijit Samanta Section: - A Roll No: - P/MN/R/09/167

ASSEMBLY LINE BALANCING

P a g e | 3

► Assembly Line: -

It is associated with mass production, the equipments, machines, manpower are arranged in a line in

such a way that the product flows form one station to another station and at the last station we find

out the finished product.

► Work Station: -

A location in the line where certain tasks of same type are performed as a group task.

► Station Time: -

The time required to perform the same type of task or the group task.

► Cycle Time: -

It is the amount of time required to produce one unit of finished product.

► Balanced Delay: -

= Σ 𝐹𝑜𝑟𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑑𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒

𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚 1𝑠𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑡.

► Bottle Neck Controller: -

It is the work station for which the required time is maximum. It controls the time required to

produce a finished product.

BASIC CONCEPTS: -

P a g e | 4

► Bottle Neck Controller : - This particular work station is taking the maximum station time

in the whole assembly line. So this is the bottle neck controller for this assembly line.

► Station Time: - The station time for various working station is 2.5, 2.7, 3.0, 4.0, 4.5, 1.9, 5.0,

2.6, 3.2 and 4.0 minutes respectively for work station 1, 2 ... etc.

► Cycle Time: - The cycle time for this assembly line is 5.0 minutes for work station 7. Because

this particular work station is taking the maximum time and it is controlling the operation of the

whole assembly line.

► Balanced Delay: - As we know the formula for balance delay is

𝐵𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝐷𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑦 =Σ 𝐹𝑜𝑟𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝐼𝑑𝑙𝑒 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒

𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑 = 𝐶𝑦𝑐𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 × 𝑁𝑜. 𝑜𝑓 𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 × 100

=(2.5+2.3+2.0+1.0+0.5+3.1+0+2.4+1.8+1.0)

(5.0×10) × 100 =

16.6

50 × 100 = 𝟑𝟑.𝟐 %

So for the above assembly line the balanced delay is 33.2 %.

► From the above assembly line every product will come out in every 5 minutes. Because the

control cycle operator is taking a station time of 5 minutes which is maximum for the line. So in

every 5 minutes duration one product will come from the assembly line.

Work Station

Station 1

Station 2

Station 3

Station 4

Station 5

Station 6

Station 7

Station 8

Station 9

Station 10

Station Time (Min)

2.5 2.7 3.0 4.0 4.5 1.9 5.0 2.6 3.2 4.0

Forced Idle time (Min)

2.5 2.3 2.0 1.0 0.5 3.1 0 2.4 1.8 1.0

ASSEMBLY LINE

P a g e | 5