Facility Planning and Assembly Line Balancing in Garment Industry

Abstract

Motion and time studies have been widely used to analyze the motions of workers and the time consumed to do tasks aiming to eliminate non-added value motions and times. This work focuses on solving the assembly line balancing problem using the Largest Candidate Rule (LCR) method in garment industry. LCR is one of the simplest and cost effective methods used in motion and time studies. In this work, tasks required to produce a T-shirt in a garment facility are analyzed. Combined line balancing and layout planning are used to improve the current work performance and increase productivity of workers by reducing worker’s idle time. It was found that the time efficiency of the workers has improved after applying this method and the product’s travel time has dramatically decreased without large investments in purchasing new machines or using expensive technologies.