Line Balancing

Revised Oct 1999

LINE BALANCING
The need for line balancing
When manufacturing activities are laid out as a line in a product layout it is important to
ensure, as far as is possible, that the capacity of each facility on the line is
approximately the same, to do otherwise would be inefficient and wasteful. Facilities
should be planned therefore to provide a similar capacity. This may involve buying
larger or smaller machines to suit.
When designing assembly lines involving many manual assembly tasks it is possible to
organize where and when tasks are done to maximise efficiency. For example the
assembly of a product may require say 20 tasks, of differing standard times. This does
not mean that 20 operators are required, each doing a single task. Doing each
separately and in sequence would be very inefficient. There may be some flexibility in
the sequence in which the tasks are done, but much of the sequence will be fixed.
Concepts of line balancing
It is usually possible to group tasks together at a work station in a way which is possible
for the given sequence constraints but which brings the total standard time at each work
station to around the same value, and a value which is feasible for the intended output
volume. 5 operators at 5 workstations on the assembly line may, for example, do a set
of 20 tasks. In this way each work station, and hence each operator, will be equally
loaded and thus have the same capacity. Work will therefore be able to flow smoothly
along the line without 'bottlenecks' of less capacity. Such a line would be 'balanced' and
would operate efficiently. In practice perfect balance is unlikely, the best solution is that
in which the range of workstation standard times is a minimum. The efficiency and
utilisation of a line can be measured as:
Line Efficiency = Standard time for the product / (No. of workstations x cycle time)
(58.1)

Line Utilization = actual cycle time / maximum cycle time

= time required / time available

(58.2)

Cycle time used here is 'time required'. Table 58.1 illustrates an example of line
balancing
Table 58.1 Tasks required for assembly of a product (task times in minutes)

Task

Total

Output/day

240

Time

1.2

0.7

0.9

0.9

1.5

1.8

0.4

0.4

1.5

9.3

Hours/day

Table 58.1 shows data about a set of tasks needed to assemble a product. For each
task a standard time is given. The dependence for each activity is an indication of which
other activities need to be done before the given activity can be done. Figure 58.1
shows the logical dependencies as a network diagram. From the volume data it is
possible to calculate the time available. The output per day is 240 so the time available
to assemble each one is 1/240 of a day. The working day is 8 hours or 480 minutes so the
time available is 2 minutes. This means that tasks can be combined together but the
total time at a workstation must not exceed 2 minutes. The actual cycle time may be
less than this. The actual cycle time for a line is the maximum of the values of required
at its workstations. From the total work content, 9.3 minutes, it is possible to calculate
the minimum number of work stations. The value obtained is rounded up to the next
higher whole number.
Minimum no. of work stations = total work content / cycle time
(58.3)
(rounded up to an integer)
In this case the minimum number of work stations is 9.3 / 2 = 4.65 which is rounded up
to 5. This does not means that the number of work stations has to be 5 only that 5 is the
minimum number that are needed to ensure that the time required is below that needed
to achieve the required output. In some cases it may not be possible to achieve this
minimum, in other cases a larger number could be preferred. In many cases there will
not be a single feasible solution but several alternatives.
Figure 58.1

From the activity list and dependencies it is possible to draw a network showing the
sequences of activities. This is shown in Figure 58.1. By visual inspection of Figure 58.1
it can be seen that some activities can be grouped together, up to the limit of the cycle
time. Tasks 1 and 3 can be linked since when task 1 has been done it is possible to do
task 3. Tasks 2 and 4 can be linked since once task 1 has been done both tasks 2 and 4
can be done. Tasks 1 and 5 can not be grouped since task 2 is not done until after task
1 has been done. If it were possible within the time available tasks 1 and 2 and 5 could
be grouped together (but not in this case since the time available would be exceeded).
Figure 58.2 shows a possible grouping of activities for this example and Table 58.2
shows standard times for the 5 work stations.
Table 58.2 Workstations for assembly of a product

Station

Tasks

1+3

2+4

5+7

8+9

Time

1.9

1.9

1.8

1.9

1.9

This table, and Figure 58.2 show that tasks 1 and 3, 5 and 7 and 8 and 9 have been
grouped together.
Figure 58.2

Figure 58.3 shows the work load at each workstation. The balance is not perfect since
the task time at each workstation is not exactly the same. However the line is better
balanced than it would have been if each task had been done at its own workstation.
Figure 58.3

Measures of the efficiency of the line can then be made and compared for alternative
proposals
Line efficiency = 9.3 / 5 x 1.9 =
0.979

(58.4)

Line utilization = 1.9 / 2.0 =

0.95
Line effectiveness = 0.979 x 0.95 =
0.93

(58.5)
(58.6)

Task sheet - Unit 58

A product is to be assembled on a line. The activities required and their standard times,
in standard minutes, are shown in the table below. The diagram shows the
dependencies between the assembly activities. The output required is 100 units per 8hour day.
Table 58.3

Task for an assembly line

Task

10

Time

1.2

2.1

2.3

2.5

4.0

3.2

1.2

1.1

1.6

3.6

1+
2

5+
6

7+8+9

Dependency -

2+ 4+
3 5

Figure 58.4 Network diagram of activity dependencies

58.1 Determine the number of work-stations and the activities that each
should do.

58.2 Calculate the efficiency and utilization of the line.

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