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Hawker Beechcraft Uses a New Solution Approach to Balance Assembly Lines

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  • Sue Abdinnour

    (Department of Finance, Real Estate, and Decision Sciences, W. Frank Barton School of Business, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas 67260)

Abstract

In 2002, Hawker Beechcraft set out to improve the efficiency of its Hawker 800XP assembly line. The line was paced such that an aircraft was moved to the next workstation on the line on a schedule---even if work in a previous workstation had not completed. At the time, work in progress on the assembly line was high, and most work on the aircraft was completed out of station. Hawker Beechcraft's management wanted a more quantitative approach to determine how many workstations are necessary and how to best assign the tasks to the workstations; its goal was to minimize work in progress and out-of-station work. In response to a management request, we proposed a new solution approach based on assembly-line balancing principles but customized to a complex product (aircraft) in a real assembly-line setting. Hawker Beechcraft implemented our recommended solution on the Hawker 800XP product line in 2003. The company also used our new solution approach to balance two other assembly lines, saving over $30 million.

Suggested Citation

  • Sue Abdinnour, 2011. "Hawker Beechcraft Uses a New Solution Approach to Balance Assembly Lines," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 41(2), pages 164-176, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:orinte:v:41:y:2011:i:2:p:164-176
    DOI: 10.1287/inte.1100.0535
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Lapierre, Sophie D. & Ruiz, Angel & Soriano, Patrick, 2006. "Balancing assembly lines with tabu search," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 168(3), pages 826-837, February.
    2. Becker, Christian & Scholl, Armin, 2006. "A survey on problems and methods in generalized assembly line balancing," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 168(3), pages 694-715, February.
    3. Scholl, Armin & Becker, Christian, 2006. "State-of-the-art exact and heuristic solution procedures for simple assembly line balancing," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 168(3), pages 666-693, February.
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