A survey of the literature on the multiple or parallel assembly line balancing problem

This paper focuses on production systems that consist of multiple parallel assembly lines. The main literature contributions are briefly described and used to present a summary of the state of the art. The advantages and disadvantages of adopting multiple lines are discussed and the multiple assembly line balancing problem and its relevant characteristics are described. [Received 19 March 2007; Revised 3 July 2007; Accepted 3 September 2007]