Celik, ErkanKara, YakupAtasagun, Yakup2020-03-262020-03-2620140020-75431366-588Xhttps://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2014.917768https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12395/30552In real world, line balancing involves existing lines in existing factories and the line typically needs to be rebalanced rather than balanced. Rebalancing of a U-line can be defined as a changeover process from its initial configuration to a new configuration for a while due to the reasons such as demand variations, changes in product design and changes in task times, etc. This study defines U-line rebalancing problem with stochastic task times and proposes a solution procedure based on ant colony optimisation. The objective of the proposed algorithm is to minimise total cost of rebalancing which is the sum of task transposition costs, workstation opening/closing costs and operating costs of workstations for a particular planning horizon. A comprehensive experiment is conducted to generate problem instances and to compare rebalancing costs of U-lines by means of several factors. A total of 6600 rebalancing solutions are obtained and several comparisons are performed.en10.1080/00207543.2014.917768info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccessant colony optimisation algorithmU-linesstochastic task timesrebalancingArticle522472627275Q1WOS:000345075300009Q2