Title: Improving the efficiency of unpaced production lines by unbalancing service time means

Authors: Sabry Shaaban, Tom McNamara

Addresses: Department of Decision Sciences and Information Systems, Rennes Business School, Rennes, France. ' Department of Decision Sciences and Information Systems, Rennes Business School, Rennes, France

Abstract: This paper investigates the benefits of deliberately unbalancing operation time means for non-automated production lines. The lines were simulated under the steady state condition, with various line lengths, buffer storage sizes, degrees of imbalance and patterns of imbalance. Output data were analysed using a set of statistical methods resulting in various conclusions being made. It was found that the best configurations are a bowl arrangement and a monotone decreasing order, with the first resulting in lower idle times and the second leading to lower average buffer levels than those of a balanced line.

Keywords: unpaced production lines; asynchronous; serial production line; coefficient of variation imbalance; service time means; simulation; efficiency; bowl arrangement; monotone decreasing order; idle times; average buffer levels.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOR.2009.023288

International Journal of Operational Research, 2009 Vol.4 No.3, pp.346 - 361

Published online: 17 Feb 2009 *

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