Hybridizations in line balancing problems: A comprehensive review on new trends and formulations

In the research on production economics, line balancing is an intensively studied combinatorial optimisation problem. In our previous comprehensive survey on line balancing problem published in 2013 in the International Journal of Production Economics, we compared input data modelling approaches, constraints and objective functions used in more 300 studies mostly published from 2007 to 2012. Ten years after, line balancing problems still attract high attention from both academia and practice. The aim of this review is to analyse actual problem formulations that are more and more frequently hybridized with other optimisation problems such as process planning, workforce planning and/or resource scheduling in order to create efficient solutions for customized production environments adapted for volatile markets. This presentation of the state of the art is based on a review of more than 500 articles published in refereed journals between 2012 and 2022.