Analysis of a Preference Order Assembly Line Problem

An analysis is made of a preference order dynamic programming procedure proposed in the literature for stochastic assembly line balancing problems. It is shown that in general the procedure does not satisfy the monotonicity condition and that therefore there is no guarantee that the solutions will be optimal. It is also shown that for a certain class of problems for which the procedure does yield optimal solutions, the proposed preference order model can be reformulated as a regular dynamic programming model.