Line balancing process

The process of balancing an assembly line involves three major steps: determine the takt time, calculate the theoretical minimum number of workstations and assign specific assembly tasks to each workstation. These steps can be performed has described below:

1. Takt Time

Takt time, also known as the production pace, is the rate at which customers require finished units.  In other words, it sets the desired time between units of production output, synchronized to costumer demand. It stems from the German word ‘takt’ that means pace, beat or musical meter and can be determined by dividing the productive time available per day and the required demand also per day.

We can determine the takt time by dividing the productive time available and the required demand per day, as previously described.

2. Minimum number of workstations

This can be calculated as the total tasks duration time divided by the takt time. The total tasks duration time is the sum of all tasks times that it takes to make the product in analysis.

3. Assign tasks to workstations

Assign tasks, one at a time, to the first workstation until the sum of the task times is equal to the workstation cycle time, or no other tasks are feasible because of time or sequence restrictions.

Repeat the process for Workstation 2, Workstation 3, and so on until all tasks are assigned. One can also determine the maximum number of production and measure the efficiency of an assembly line as follows: