Solving assembly line balancing type ii problem using progressive modeling

This paper presents a new modeling approach called Progressive Modeling (PM) and demonstrates it by solving the Assembly Line Balancing Type II (ALBP-II) problem. PM introduces some new concepts that make the modeling process of large-scale complex industrial problems more systematic and their solution algorithms much faster and easily maintained. In the context of SALBP-II, PM introduces a component model to deploy the problem logic and its solution algorithm into several interacting components. The problem is represented as an object-oriented graph G(V,E,W) of vertices, edges, and workstations which enables our solutions to start anywhere. The novel representation relaxes the only forward and backward tracking approach used in the assembly line balancing problems in the related literature. The developed problem analysis and solution algorithms demonstrate why the new modeling paradigm should be promising and capable of handling more complex real-world assembly balancing problems. A set of well-reported problems in the literature is reported and solved. The paper concludes by demonstrating the efficiency of the new modeling approach and future extensions.