Abstract
A flexible flow line(FFL) consists of several groups of identical machines. All work-orders flow along the same path through successive machine groups. Thus, we emphasized the balancing of workloads between machine groups in order to maximize total productivity. On the other hand, many different types of work-orders, in varying batch or lot sizes, are produced simultaneously. The mix of work-orders, their lot sizes, and the sequence in which they are produced affect the amount of workload. However, the work-orders and their lot sizes are prefixed and cannot be changed. Because of these reasons, we have developed an optimal route selection model using heuristic search and Min-Max algorithm for balancing the workload between machine groups in the FFL.