Question

Q. No. 3: Consider the following two assembly lines with 4 stations. Determine which stations to choose from lines 1 and 2 to minimize total time through the factory 5 4 4 In Out 2 2 6 4 5 Solution SO:I CLO: 2 Total Points: 20 Obtained Points: 4 10

Can I get a full solution for this ?

thank!

Answer 1

Please let me know if you require any further assistance.

There is one thing you need to remember while doing such kind of questions. That applying algorithms to such questions is a waste of time! Simple questions like these should be solved in about 30-50 seconds simply in your head without using any tables. In a mcq exam(This is where most questions of this kind appear!) you won't have time to construct tables and solve questions that way.

With that being said, The above problem is a recreation of assembly line scheduling problem where:

1. There are entry and exit costs in the factory.

2. Staying on the same assembly line doesn't incur any cost but changing lanes does.

3. Each station has a processing time/cost.

If the problem statement is big we need to use dynamic programming to solve this. But since you will encounter such problems mostly in mcq type exams, you need to solve them in your head.

tips you need to remember -:

1. They will try to trick you by showing first few stations in a line having high costs whereas later they have low costs.(Usually)

2. Use your intuition to find when to change lanes and when to stay on the lane.

Here is the simple solution to this question -:

L2 is lane 2 and L1 is lane 1

Si represents the station number.

so the solution is -: L2->S1->S2->S3->L1->S4 which sums to 25 and is the minimum total time required to go through the assembly line in the factory.