The practice of ignoring station length constraints on assembly lines where large items are attached to a moving belt at regular intervals and permitting neighbouring operators to perform their tasks within the same track sections to some extent is frequently observed in industry and has often been mooted in research publications. However, no theoretically or numerically derived results exist to demonstrate the effectiveness of such measures in alleviating the debilitating interaction of a constant, mechanically-set throughput rate and a series of work stages that each exhibit a random nature with regard to their operation times. Such considerations are important because capital investment in this type of manufacturing facility is usually high, output is also of high value and the assembly technology generally decrees that facilities are semi-permanent, and thereby emphasises pre-production planning aspects.