Empirical evaluation of lower bounding methods for the simple assembly line balancing problem

The simple assembly line balancing problem (SALBP) is a classical problem that arises in the design of assembly lines. The objective of the SALBP is to divide the assembly work among different workstations of the assembly line in order to maximise the efficiency of the entire line. In this paper, we: (a) put forward different families of lower bounds for the SALBP; (b) introduce new lower bounds; (c) generalise previous results; and (d) analyse the performance of these lower bounding techniques in terms of solution quality using a recently proposed set of instances. An analysis of the results of these bounds leads us to: (1) improve the best-known lower bound for 104 out of the 175 open instances from the benchmark set; (2) identify the areas of applicability of different sources of bounds; and (3) identify possible uses of these bounds in other assembly line balancing problems.