Modeling and solving assembly line worker assignment and balancing problem with sequence-dependent setup times

Assembly lines appear with various differentiations in order to better include the disabled in the labor market and to increase production efficiency. In this way, the optimal workforce assignment problem that emerges heterogeneously is called assembly line worker assignment and balancing problem (ALWABP). This paper addresses the ALWABP where the simple version is enriched by considering sequence-dependent setup times between tasks. A mixed integer linear programming model is presented, and a simulated annealing algorithm is developed such as an NP-hard problem. In order to test the proposed solutions, 640 benchmark problems in the literature were combined and used. The solutions obtained through using the proposed algorithm are compared with the mixed integer programming model on the small-size test problems. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is more effective and robust for a large set of benchmark problems.