A study of in-process waiting time on a linear walking worker assembly line

Lassalle, S; Wang, Q; Owen, Geraint; Mileham, A R

doi:10.1243/09544054jem769

Cited by 13 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 25 publications

(28 reference statements)

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“…Simulation results of previous research (Lassalle et al 2007, Wang et al 2009) indicated that the blocking rates and in-process waiting times can, alternatively, be reduced by having more workstations than walking workers on the line. But these results were obtained based on the assumption that the work content at workstations of the line can be divisible.…”

Section: Variable (C) -Number Of Workersmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…Organising the WWAL along a U-shaped layout is optimised for short walking distances for standing and Modelling and simulation of a linear walking worker assembly line considered being a random system due to the randomness of input parameters that can have a significant impact on performance of the system Lassalle et al (2007) Witness, simulation software and an external user-friendly interface for its input and output data which were managed and controlled by a series of MS Excel TM spread sheets Examination of the variable behaviour of in-process waiting time that takes place on a linear WWAL, based on two assumptions related to workers performance:…”

Section: Major System Featuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Prediction and analysis impact of operational design of a manual assembly system with walking workers on performance

Al‐Zuheri

Luong

Xing

2013

International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing

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Manual assembly lines, with workers travelling with the work along the line to perform all required tasks, are an example of assembly systems which have greater flexibility over traditional systems due to an improved response to product demand variability. Implementing assembly systems in this way is difficult, especially when operational design reflects an incomplete understanding of how workers can best perform within the system. Different operational designs for such systems have a profound impact on the performance of the system in terms of productivity and ergonomics. This paper analyses the performance of walking worker assembly line (WWAL) in different operational designs. A mathematical model was developed, which considers the effects of a number of operational design variables. An industrial case study is presented here to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model. The results indicate that WWAL can be designed to improve performance, flexibility and labour costs by approaching productivity and ergonomics collaboratively. The results obtained by the model prediction were compared with computer simulation results. Comparison validated the accuracy of the proposed model. The model provides partial characterisations of the optimal design of WWAL and can be used to develop heuristics for local or global optimisation.

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Section: Variable (C) -Number Of Workersmentioning

confidence: 86%

Section: Major System Featuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prediction and analysis impact of operational design of a manual assembly system with walking workers on performance

Al‐Zuheri

Luong

Xing

2013

International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…& WW waiting time and travel time analysis and optimization. [35] examine the variable behavior of the in-process waiting time, while [36,37] evaluate the critical factor of in-progress waiting time and mathematically analyze the varying magnitude of production loss. & WW number of operators/stations analysis and optimization.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Walking worker vs fixed worker assembly considering the impact of components exposure on assembly time and energy expenditure

Calzavara

Faccio

Persona

et al. 2021

Int J Adv Manuf Technol

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Recently, the need for assembly systems of better following the market demand has led to the spread of alternative solutions with respect to the traditional fixed worker strategy. Walking worker systems, where operators move across the line to produce the finished product, are gaining always more interest. In this paper, a comparison between the fixed worker (FW) and the walking worker (WW) assembly strategies is provided, by taking into account their differences both in terms of performed activities during assembly and of material exposure at the assembly workstations. The evaluation is carried out through the proposal of a mathematical model, to understand the impact on assembly time and on operators’ energy expenditure. The behavior of the model is investigated both with a parametric analysis and a real case study. The results show that the FW is the best one when the system is working at its maximum throughput, while the WW strategy turns out to be preferable for the lower values of market demand, both from a time and an energy expenditure perspective.

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“…. Equation (8) exhibits the task's assigned station and constraint (9) shows the station priority. .…”

Section: Problem Assumptions and Formulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Different categories of ALBP are studied in the literature [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. Two main categories of the problem are [1]:…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Formulation and heuristic algorithm for flow time minimization in a simple assembly line

Bahalke

Dolatkhahi

Dehghani

et al. 2011

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part B:

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Assembly lines are special flow-line production systems which are of great importance in industrial mass production. Since the flow time of a product in most industrial foundries dealing with heating products is important because of its cost, the present paper introduces the effect of task deterioration into the total flow time of a product in each production cycle of an assembly line. Task deterioration means that a task processed later consumes more time than the same task when it is processed earlier. This issue is considered in a simple assembly line balancing (SALB) problem, where the aim is to find an optimal schedule of tasks in the workstations so as to minimize total flow time of a product considering the desired cycle time. For this aim a mathematical model is proposed and, according to complexity of the considered problem, a heuristic algorithm is introduced to minimize the flow time objective function which is named as FTALB. Finally, several well-known examples are solved and comparisons are done with the popular genetic algorithm and tabu search meta-heuristics. The results show the effectiveness of the proposed FTALB heuristic algorithm in terms of both the quality of the solutions and the computational time, which is almost zero in all scales of instances.

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A study of in-process waiting time on a linear walking worker assembly line

Cited by 13 publications

References 25 publications

Prediction and analysis impact of operational design of a manual assembly system with walking workers on performance

Prediction and analysis impact of operational design of a manual assembly system with walking workers on performance

Walking worker vs fixed worker assembly considering the impact of components exposure on assembly time and energy expenditure

Formulation and heuristic algorithm for flow time minimization in a simple assembly line

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