Identifying specific line balancing criteria for an efficient line balancing software : A case Study

Abstract: For any business, surviving in a competitive market while maintaining all the operational performance indices up to mark is very crucial. There are several theories and techniques to improve the efficiency of the operational performances. Line balancing is one of those well practiced techniques used daily in most of the industries. Line balancing helps balance the assembly lines with regards to man, machine, takt times, etc. This thesis research was done with Electrolux laundry systems, Ljungby in Sweden. With the varying customer demands the case company was balancing its line manually using basic methods. As a part of lean development schemes, Electrolux Ljungby, wanted to transform the line balancing techniques from manual to a fully automated software. The purpose of this research is to determine the company-specific line balancing criteria which should be considered before performing line balancing. This research furthermore lays out a guideline to follow a smooth transition from the manual system of LB to an automated software by concluding the features the software must handle to perform the LB according to required objectives. A case study approach was utilized to collect all the required data to achieve the results. Using the data collection techniques such as interviews, observations and historical analysis we arrived at the data required to design the guidelines with regards to line balancing software features.  The findings suggest that the desired line balancing constraints which are very important in the multi model single sided straight-line balancing problems are flow of materials, assembly precedence, physical constraints, product demand, bill of materials, restricted processes, man power and desired line balancing objectives. Keeping these constraints into consideration the features which are desired in an onlooking line balancing software are the Integration of data and documents/ maximum control, mixed model and option intelligence and analysis, multiple resources, smart variant management, scenario management, yamazumi chart, constraints and reporting tabs. The findings of this thesis can be used as guidelines by any manufacturing industry while they consider buying a new software which can handle Line balancing problems. This research is one of its kind which talks purely about the constraints and desired features only in a specific line balancing scenario. Practitioners can use this as a base for conducting further research on constraints and features pertaining to it, for different line balancing scenarios.