Optimization was extended not only to the type of work but also to the physical placement of machines and workforce. Optimization was aimed at a local and global level. In 1955, Salveson identified the “balance delay”, or wasted time, as an objective (Salveson 1955). Even in these early times, they tried to schedule production (Wilson 2014). The literature calls such optimization as line balancing, and it is highly beneficial where mass production occurs and the products have been manufactured for a longer period of time in the same production line (Sivasankaran and Shahabudeen 2014).Īlthough the conveyor belt was first used by meat factories in Chicago, Ford made it known in 1913. It is important for the fulfillment of orders that the plant gets the most out of its resources, thus optimize the task-worker allocation. Although such work does not require special qualifications, the factories are faced with significant labor shortages. Typically, various steps must be performed sequentially one after the other done by trained workers. In automotive and electronic assembly factories the products are assembled from ready-made parts in production lines mainly by human resources. In Central and Eastern Europe assembly plants have a major role in the industry. As a result, the basis for rigorous mathematical optimization-based decision support can be built up according to graphical models easily understandable by end users as well. The P-graph approach provides visual modeling by graphs in a graphical editor and helps understand the relations of decision variables while generating the corresponding mathematical model, which can be generalized for a class of problems and rebuilt according to actual data. In addition to the theoretical presentation, the article shows the results achieved by applying the proposed methodology in a real-world environment in a computer assembly plant. In this article a novel formulation of the problem by process graphs or P-graphs is presented leading in an easy to follow visual definition of the potential task to employee allocations, as well as the options to generate a mathematical programming model algorithmically, to be solved by general purpose solvers or get the optimal and alternative N-best allocations by P-graph software. Due to the growing labor shortage, it is critical that the production lines should be optimally loaded, i.e., the tasks have to be evenly distributed among the workstations according to their cycle times. Large companies and their subcontractors manufacture automotive and electronic products from components, employing a significant number of human resources. Assembly industry plays a key role in Central and Eastern Europe.
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