A Scheduling Algorithm for the Unbalanced Production Line

This paper presents procedures for obtaining feasible fractional and integer assignments which can be used to schedule manpower for the unbalanced production line. The objective is to minimize the cost of the total in-process inventory. A mathematical model is formulated and then used to calculate fractional assignments using linear programming and integer assignments using integer programming. An algorithm is then developed which provides the equivalent fractional solution as obtained from linear programming followed by a heuristic algorithm which converts these fractional assignments to feasible integer assignments. Sample problems and their solutions are provided to illustrate the assignment procedures.