A New Ergonomic Assembly Line Worker Assignment and Balancing Model Proposal Considering the Heterogenous Worker Characteristics

It is important to increase the efficiency of assembly lines to use production resources correctly and effectively. There are many studies in the literature for this purpose. For assembly lines, the most important production resource is the worker, and workers are affected by ergonomic factors in the production environment. In this context, in Assembly Line Worker Assignment and Balancing Problems (ALWABP), where assembly line balancing and worker assignment are performed together, it is considered that workers have different abilities and they can complete the same task in different times. However, it should be taken into account that ergonomic factors also affect the performance of workers. Accordingly, in the study, a new ALWABP, which focuses on the ergonomic risk factors as lighting, noise and inappropriate working posture, was proposed and the problem solution was obtained by developing a mathematical model. The related problem was named as Ergonomic Assembly Line Worker Assignment and Balancing Problem (Ergo-ALWABP) and it has an original construct that is not included in the literature. The proposed model will help decision-makers in increasing the production efficiency in the assembly line, considering worker heterogeneity and ergonomic conditions