Span of control in long assembly lines - Segmenting the line

This paper explores the effect of span-of-control on long assembly line managerial segmentation into sections, and provides a framework for deciding the line's managerial structure. Span of control in assembly lines is analyzed, and is shown to be a major motive for segmenting the line. A foreman's supervisory attention is spread across the stations under his/her control. Therefore, span of control of the line's foreman is modeled as a service model, where the foreman gives managerial and relief service to all the stations under his/her control. The paper develops quantitative model to represent the related tradeoff related to the span of control and suggests bounds and optimal solution for the segment length (number of stations per segment). The model enables finding effective upper bounds to number of stations per line section, implicitly establishing the practicality of exact methods for designing and balancing each section.