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Line balancing

Description
A product is produced on an assembly lines with four workstations. It is assembled in twelve operations between which there are certain precedence constraints. The duration of every task is given. We would like to distribute the tasks among the workstations in order to balance the line to obtain the shortest possible cycle time, that is, the total time required for assembling the product. Every task needs to be assigned to a single workstation that has to process it without interruption. Every workstation deals with a single operation at a time.

Further explanation of this example: 'Applications of optimization with Xpress-MP', Section 7.6 'Assembly line balancing' (b6linebal.mos)


Source Files
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linebal_graph.mos[download]

Data Files





linebal_graph.mos

(!******************************************************
   Mosel Example Problems
   ======================

   file linebal.mos
   ````````````````
   TYPE:         Line balancing problem
   DIFFICULTY:   2
   FEATURES:     MIP problem, encoding of arcs, `range', formulation of 
                 sequencing constraints
   DESCRIPTION:  A product is produced on an assembly lines with four 
                 workstations. It is assembled in twelve operations between 
                 which there are certain precedence constraints. The duration 
                 of every task is given. We would like to distribute the 
                 tasks among the workstations in order to balance the line to 
                 obtain the shortest possible cycle time, that is, the total
                 time required for assembling the product. Every task needs 
                 to be assigned to a single workstation that has to process 
                 it without interruption. Every workstation deals with a 
                 single operation at a time.    
   FURTHER INFO: `Applications of optimization with Xpress-MP', 
                 Section 7.6 `Assembly line balancing'
   
   (c) 2008 Fair Isaac Corporation
       author: S. Heipcke, 2002, rev. Sep. 2017
*******************************************************!)

model "Assembly line balancing"
 uses "mmxprs", "mmsvg"

 declarations   
  MACH=1..4                             ! Set of workstations
  TASKS=1..12                           ! Set of tasks

  DUR: array(TASKS) of integer          ! Durations of tasks
  ARC: array(RA:range, 1..2) of integer ! Precedence relations between tasks

  process: array(TASKS,MACH) of mpvar   ! 1 if task on machine, 0 otherwise
  cycle: mpvar                          ! Duration of a production cycle
 end-declarations

 initializations from 'linebal.dat'
  DUR ARC 
 end-initializations

! One workstation per task
 forall(i in TASKS) OneMachTask(i):= sum(m in MACH) process(i,m) = 1

! Sequence of tasks
 forall(a in RA) Prec(a):= sum(m in MACH) m*process(ARC(a,1),m) <=
                           sum(m in MACH) m*process(ARC(a,2),m)

! Cycle time
 forall(m in MACH) Cycle(m):= sum(i in TASKS) DUR(i)*process(i,m) <= cycle

 forall(i in TASKS, m in MACH) process(i,m) is_binary

! Minimize the duration of a production cycle
 minimize(cycle)
 
! Solution printing
 writeln("Minimum cycle time: ", getobjval)
 forall(m in MACH) do
  write("Workstation ", m, ":")
  forall(i in TASKS)
   write(if(getsol(sum(k in MACH) k*process(i,k)) = m, " "+i, "")) 
  writeln(" (duration: ", getsol(sum(i in TASKS) DUR(i)*process(i,m)),")")
 end-do  
 
! Solution drawing
 YFAC:=2
 svgsetgraphviewbox(0,0,round(getobjval)+5, MACH.size*YFAC+2)
 svgsetgraphlabels("Time","Workstations")
 forall(m in MACH) do
  cum:=0.0
  forall(i in TASKS | getsol(sum(k in MACH) k*process(i,k)) = m ) do
    svgaddgroup("T"+i, "Task "+i)
    svgaddrectangle(cum,m*YFAC,DUR(i),0.5)
    cum+=DUR(i)
  end-do
 end-do
 
 svgsave("linebal.svg")
 svgrefresh
 svgwaitclose("Close browser window to terminate model execution.", 1)
end-model

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