Applicability of different line balancing methods in the production of apparel

Abstract

In today's competitive environment, it is known that businesses should make production processes more efficient and flexible to improve competitive powers in global markets. Line balancing problem is one of the important problems for the manufacturing sectors. Especially labor-intensive productions, such as apparel sector this situation is more evident. Production line balancing is of great importance in apparel manufacturing processes which works a large number of employees. In this study, five different methods used in production line balancing were analyzed using t-shirt model being manufacturing in an apparel factory. When the efficiencies of line balancing methods were investigated, values of 5 different methods were found the same. The different results could not be obtained due to having less operation steps of t-shirt production. Additionally, the results of line balancing methods applied to the production line were compared with the result of improving method.