Optimizing assembly line fill rate by minimizing the losses due to discrepancy between truck and workstation lengths

At Scania, trucks of varying lengths are produced on a continuously driven mixed model assembly line. Inefficiencies arise when the length of certain trucks exceeds that of the workstations. This leads to idle time at the affected workstations and complete line stoppages. This research addresses this challenge by proposing a heuristic approach aimed at mitigating these effects. The heuristic focuses on offsetting the excess length of long trucks by strategically allocating them to bundles with short trucks that can recover these excess lengths.