For a manufacturer, each additional station means a significant
investment in equipment, increase in variable costs – first of all, in
wages, – not to mention utilization of space of the factory, which is
often a constraint resource. To perform such a step, a firm has to
make a careful estimation of benefits from the reduction of ergonomic
risks that one or several additional stations would bring.
Assembly line balancing can give an answer, how large the expected
mitigation of ergonomic risks will be for each station, as
well as for the line as a whole. The above mentioned 4% increase
in line capacity, necessary to keep ergonomic risks in a reasonable
range (green), can be used by line managers as a rule of thumb