A Review on Robotic Assembly Line Balancing and Metaheuristic in Manufacturing Industry

Nowadays, the era of Industrial Revolution 4.0 (4IR) has resulted the advancement of technology in the manufacturing engineering industry. Robotic technology is one of the main drivers that plays an important role in realizing the growth IR4.0. In the manufacturing industry, robots are widely used to replace human labor and enhance the flexibility in the assembly process. Thus, it has motivated many authors to study on Robotic Assembly Line Balancing (RALB). Numerous researchers have developed mathematical models and optimization techniques in solving RALB problems. This paper aims to conduct a survey on the objective functions regarding the mathematical models and to give a review on metaheuristic, heuristic, and exact methods that commonly applied to this problem. 24 papers from 2009 until 2019 were reviewed in order to see the study trend in aspects of objective function and method used in this area. It can be seen that metaheuristics are extensively used to minimize the cycle time in RALB. The literature review in RALB may highlight a research gap and give guidance for future work.