A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering of the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand

Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology,1977

The main purpose of this study was to redesign an assembly line for Massey-Ferguson MF-165 tractor assembly plant. Existing assembly line had 17 work stations with the cycle time of 50 minutes, i.e. 3000 seconds. The study comprised of: 1. Studying the existing process in the tractor assembly plant. 2. Breaking down the process into a group of work elements, each of which is associated with. work element time and precedence requirements. 3. Applying heuristic method to improve the balancing of the tractor assembly line. The data were collected continuously on the line and were not randomized. It was assumed th.at each type of the job requires the same type and level of skill of labourers, i.e. the workers have the ability to do the 0ther jobs. Using heuristic method of assembly line balancing, the minimum number of work stations needed for this assembly line should be only 13, for a cycle time of 3000 seconds. Assuming th.at the painting time can reduced, the cycle time could be reduced to 2860 seconds. In both cases for 13 work stations the number of operators can be reduced from 38 to 32. Reduction in cycle time from 3000 seconds to 2860 seconds should increase the production slightly. A computer program written for this study way used in step 3. It can also be applied in solving similar line balancing problems.