Stochastic assembly line balancing using simulated annealing

The problem of balancing assembly lines with stochastic task processing times is addressed. The size of the problems that can be solved by optimal methods is limited and hence many heuristics have been developed, which give sub-optimal solutions. An approach for solving the problem using the simulated annealing technique is presented here. The proposed approach tries to reach the global optimum by not getting trapped at the different local optimum points. Another feature of this method is the non-dependence of the final solution on the initial solution. Solutions for line balancing problems obtained using the above method compare favourably with the results of other greedy heuristics.