Assembly line balancing problem with stochastic sequence-dependent setup times

When studies on the assembly line balancing problem taking into account the setup times are analyzed, a few papers are observed. However, studies showed that setup time plays an important role in total production time. Besides, in these studies, the setup times are assumed to be deterministic. Considering deterministic setup times decrease proximity of problem to real life application. Because the operation and setup times may vary in real applications due to human factors, machine breakdowns, lack of equipment and environmental factors. Therefore, in this thesis, assembly line balancing problem is investigated taking into account the sequence-dependent stochastic setup times. Mathematical model is proposed for solving the problem and computational analysis is conducted on test problems. The mathematical model can find solution for small–size test problems. However, for large scale test problems it doesn't give solution within acceptable computation time. For this reason, a heuristic approach based on COMSOAL is presented for solving large sized test problems.