Cyclic scheduling of flexible mixed model assembly lines with parallel stations

In this paper, the problem of balancing and cyclic scheduling of flexible mixed model assembly lines with parallel stations is studied. To exploit the connection between balancing and cyclic scheduling problems for an efficient line management, they are considered simultaneously. A novel constraint programming model including problem specific symmetry breaking constraints is proposed to solve this problem. Experiments on extensive number of test instances with various sizes are also presented. (C) 2015 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.