The Taguchi Approach in Optimizing the Environmental Factors Towards Productivity at Automotive Industry

Abstract

The objective of this study is to determine the dominance effects of environmental factors such as illuminance, humidity and WBGT on operators' productivity in the Malaysian automotive industry. A case study was carried out at an automotive components assembly factory.The environmental factors examined were the illuminance (lux), humidity and WBGT of the surrounding workstation area. Two sets of representative data including the illuminance, humidity and WBGT level and production rate were collected during the study. The production rate data were collected through observations and survey questionnaires while the illuminance level was measured using photometer model RS 180-7133, and the humidity and WBGT level were measured by using Quest Temp apparatus and humidity. The Taguchi method was utilized to find the sequence of dominant factors that contributed to the productivity of the operator at that specified production workstation. The study reveals that the dominant factor that contributed to the productivity was humidity, followed by illuminance and WBGT.

A Study on Lean Manufacturing Implementation in Malaysian Automotive Component Industry

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“…(5): (5) It is understood that a time series is stationary when all its values fit to the same probability distribution, regardless the time. For a deeper study of the methodology, the Box [15] text can be consulted.…”

“…Manufacturing and automotive industries are also important in many countries, with their respective share of the business in the spare-parts area. This importance results in strong efforts to achieve a better understanding and their consequent improvements in several areas within the manufacturing and automotive sectors, such as the implementation of quality management systems at different levels [3], surveys on lean manufacturing implementation [4], analysis on the influence of the environmental factors in the automotive production processes [5], and even proposals on maintenance management in the sector [6]. Spare parts can be considered as an important business area, with sales revenues ranging from 3.5 to 35%, as found by [7], while studying 7 firms in the engineering industry.…”

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“…Product development has been an essential activity for the success of product competition especially in the fast-growing and fierce competitive arena of the automotive industry [7][8][9]. The focus of PD research in the automotive industry is directed towards developing and implementing lightweight, high strength materials, having as their main objectives to improve vehicle performance, increase fuel efficiency, reduce vehicle emissions and increase vehicle safety at competitive costs [9,10]. Among the advanced materials which fall into this category are metal matrix composites (MMCs) [11][12][13][14].…”