Journal of Applied Mathematics
Volume 2013 (2013), Article ID 531056, 10 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/531056
Research Article

A Weighted Multiobjective Optimization Method for Mixed-Model Assembly Line Problem

Şükran Şeker,1 Mesut Özgürler,1 and Mehmet Tanyaş2

1Department of Industrial Engineering, Yildiz Technical University, 34349 Istanbul, Turkey
2Department of International Trade and Logistic Management, Maltepe University, Maltepe, 34857 Istanbul, Turkey

Received 27 November 2012; Revised 22 June 2013; Accepted 27 June 2013

Academic Editor: Zhiping Qiu

Copyright © 2013 Şükran Şeker et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Mixed-model assembly line (MMAL) is a type of assembly line where several distinct models of a product are assembled. MMAL is applied in many industrial environments today because of its greater variety in demand. This paper considers the objective of minimizing the work overload (i.e., the line balancing problem) and station-to-station product flows. Generally, transportation time between stations are ignored in the literature. In this paper, Multiobjective Mixed-Integer Programming (MOMIP) model is presented to optimize these two criteria simultaneously. Also, this MOMIP model incorporates a practical constraint that allows to add parallel stations to assembly line to decrease higher station time. In the last section, MOMIP is applied to optimize the cycle time and transportation time simultaneously in mixed-model assembly line of a real consumer electronics firm in Turkey, and computational results are presented.