An improvement in calculation method for apparel assembly line balancing

Abstract

A calculation method has been developed to determine the number of workstations and cycle time, considering one machine type at each workstation, normally preferred in apparel industries. The findings are compared with the earlier findings with respect to criterions such as the number of workers, the level of workers' skill, the number of used machine and the number of worker's movement between machines. The results show improvement in line balancing when taking into consideration the machine type feature. Hence, a model is proposed for apparel assembly line balancing to take into consideration the machine type assigned to each workstation so that it has a specific advantage for apparel assembly lines.