This paper is focused on the solution quality and computing time requirements of heuristic methods for cost-oriented assembly line balancing. It is based on a recent paper (Amen, International Journal of Production Economics 68 (2000), which describes in detail the solution process of existent...

This paper is concerned with cost-oriented assembly line balancing. This problem occurs especially in the final assembly of automotives, consumer durables or personal computers, where production is still very labour- intensive, and where the wage rates depend on the requirements and...

After a characterization of the cost-oriented assembly line balancing problem it will be shown that by loading the stations maximally the cost-oriented optimum can be missed. Instead of loading the stations maximally the criterion two-stations-rule a has to be used. For generating optimal...