In this paper, to develop a loading strategy for optimal utilization o
f a flexible assembly line system while controlling the bottleneck pro
blem, the performance of the system is modeled by a non-Markovian queu
eing network with finite capacity queueing nodes. A stochastic optimiz
ation model is then presented to select the value of the maximum loadi
ng rate such that the resulting probability of finding each workstatio
n and each transporter station blocked (e.g., full) is sufficiently cl
ose to zero, and a heuristic algorithm is developed to solve the propo
sed optimization model. Finally an example is presented and the relati
ve accuracy of the proposed algorithm is investigated through a simula
tion study.