A Review of Analytical Systems of Line Balancing

Although progressive assembly has been practiced for fifty years in American industry, most of the basic problems associated with the system have, through the years, received little analytical attention. Among these is the line-balancing problem. It is of great practical importance, and yet, until very recently, industry has been satisfied to use trial-and-error techniques for line balancing that are time consuming and generally yield poor results. In the last few years this problem has come into vogue resulting in a rash of analytical papers on the subject. Some of these present systems of line balancing that are proving to be useful. This paper summarizes and discusses these systems, shows their applicability to different kinds of assembly lines, and points up the unsolved problems remaining in this area.