The simultaneous determination of the assignment of items to resources, the cycle times, and the reorder intervals in repetitive PCB assembly

The planning and scheduling of repetitive PCB assembly is usually very complicated.In this paper, we propose a solution method for the simultaneous determination of theassignment of different PCB types to capacity constrained assembly lines, the assemblycycle times of the PCB types, and the reorder intervals of the required component types.This method takes the limited capacity into account as well as the component commonality ofthe PCB types. The solution method consists of two heuristics. The first heuristic determinesthe cycle times of the PCB types and the reorder intervals of the component types in orderto minimise the sum of the setup, holding, and ordering costs for given assignments.This method is used as a subalgorithm in the second heuristic, a local searchalgorithm. The latter heuristic defines an assignment for which a local minimum of cost isachieved. A case study has been carried out in which the algorithm has been applied toreallife data. It appears that the present cost can be reduced by almost 38%.