A branch-and-bound algorithm for two-sided assembly line balancing

Two-sided (left- and right-side) assembly lines are often used in assembly of large-sized products, such as buses and trucks. A large number of exact algorithms and heuristics have been proposed to balance the well-known classical one-sided assembly lines. However, little attention has been paid to balancing the two-sided lines. Moreover, according to our best knowledge, there is no published work in balancing the two-sided assembly line exactly. In this study, a branch-and-bound algorithm is proposed to solve the balancing problem optimally. Experiments are carried out to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method and the results are promising.