Reducing physical ergonomic risks at assembly lines by line balancing and job rotation: A survey

•Ergonomic risks (ER) should be taken into account in the operational planning.•We provide a literature survey on operational planning that considers physical ER.•We discuss contributions to assembly line balancing and job rotation scheduling.•We summarize major findings and work out future research directions.

Factors such as repetitiveness of work, required application of forces, handling of heavy loads, and awkward, static postures expose assembly line workers to risks of musculoskeletal disorders. As a rule, companies perform a post hoc analysis of ergonomic risks and examine ways to modify workplaces with high ergonomic risks. However, it is possible to lower ergonomic risks by taking ergonomics aspects into account right from the planning stage. In this survey, we provide an overview of the existing optimization approaches to assembly line balancing and job rotation scheduling that consider physical ergonomic risks. We summarize major findings to provide helpful insights for practitioners and identify research directions.