Integrated configurable equipment selection and line balancing for mass production with serial–parallel machining systems

Solving equipment selection and line balancing problems together allows better line configurations to be reached and avoids local optimal solutions. This article considers jointly these two decision problems for mass production lines with serial–parallel workplaces. This study was motivated by the design of production lines based on machines with rotary or mobile tables. Nevertheless, the results are more general and can be applied to assembly and production lines with similar structures. The designers’ objectives and the constraints are studied in order to suggest a relevant mathematical model and an efficient optimization approach to solve it. A real case study is used to validate the model and the developed approach.