Validation of Line Balancing by Simulation of Workforce Flexibility

To stay competitive and reach a high productivity, mixed model assembly lines need to handle variations in capacity requirements induced by the different variants manufactured. Therefore workforce flexibility is required, i. e. drifting, which allows workers to leave their stations to fulfill high equipped variants, and the allocation of jumpers. These support if drifting is not sufficient. This paper presents a simulation tool which simulates these aspects of worker flexibility according to the produced variants and their sequence. Furthermore an approach is introduced which validates line balancing results by using the simulation tool. Since the simulation tool is already in use at a commercial vehicle company, an example of application is also given in this paper.