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IoT-Enabled Real-Time Monitoring of Assembly Line Production
Published in Mohammad Ayoub Khan, Internet of Things, 2022
An assembly line is basically a combination of man, machine, and material in a manufacturing process where parts either raw or semi-finished state are fed at a constant rate from one point to another, called workstations, in a logical way to get a final product in the most predictable way (Shukla et al. 2018). Assembly Line Balancing (ALB) is defined as the optimum allocation of tasks to different workstations to have maximum utilization of manpower at a workplace. The purpose of this type of task allocation of each worker is meant to achieve a balanced assembly line with maximum productivity (Kumar and Mahto 2013). The total processing time at each workstation, as a rule, never exceeds cycle time for smooth production output (Roshani and Giglio 2017, Taifa and Vhora 2019).
The concept of the assembly line
Published in Michel Baudin, Lean Assembly, 2020
An assembly line is an assembly system in which product units move through a sequence of stations, each set up with all the materials, machines, tools, jigs/fixtures, instructions, and operators needed for one operation, and in which each unit is processed as it passes through.
Categorical and Mathematical Comparisons of Assembly and Disassembly Lines
Published in Ammar Y. Alqahtani, Elif Kongar, Kishore K. Pochampally, Surendra M. Gupta, Responsible Manufacturing, 2019
Seamus M. McGovern, Surendra M. Gupta
The assembly line is often considered to be the most efficient way to produce many identical or near-identical products. One definition of an assembly line is that it is a manufacturing process where parts are sequentially added together by workers (including robots) until a final product is attained at the end of the line. The most familiar of these processes is a flow shop, where the product being assembled moves at a constant rate on a paced line, possibly on a conveyor belt. While often attributed to the Ford Motor Company’s assembly-line efforts from 1908 to 1915, the history of sequential mass production can be traced much further back.
Two-sided assembly line balancing that considers uncertain task time attributes and incompatible task sets
Published in International Journal of Production Research, 2021
Yuchen Li, Ibrahim Kucukkoc, Xiaowen Tang
An assembly line is an important manufacturing process that uses machines to move material or parts from one place to another. Assembly lines are widely employed to produce various types of products, including automobiles, electronic products, and jewelry. The main components of a standard assembly line are a conveyor belt, operators, workstations, interchangeable parts and tasks (Li, Kucukkoc, and Tang 2019). Assembly lines can be divided into one-sided (OAL) and two-sided lines (TAL) according to the task partitions, see Battaïa and Dolgui (2013) and Cerqueus and Delorme (2019). The assembly line balancing problem (ALBP) is a classical combinatorial optimisation problem that falls into the NP-hard category. In this paper, we address the two-sided assembly line balancing problem (TALBP).
An integrated model for assembly line re-balancing problem
Published in International Journal of Production Research, 2018
Imad Belassiria, Mohamed Mazouzi, Said ELfezazi, Anass Cherrafi, Zakaria ELMaskaoui
In the real world, the assembly lines are often prone to disruptive events such as changes in product demand, workstation breakdowns and changes in the technological specifications. Such disturbances may make the initial line balancing hard to implement. Hence, the existing assembly lines need to be rebalanced. For this reason, in industrial practices much of assembly line balancing is conducted for reconfiguration instead of first-time installation. In addition, the balancing problem covers many planning horizons depending on the disturbances nature (Manceaux et al. 2016). Indeed, the re-engineering of the assembly line concerns major changes on the structure of the line or the introduction of new products. The rebalancing level can be carried out when the product demand changes or the modification of some line structure is performed like removing or adding workstations (Grangeon, Leclaire, and Norre 2011). Dealing with the short-term planning, the dynamic rebalancing problem as discussed in Manceaux et al. (2016) could pose delays, breakdowns, temporary shortage and availability of workforces. In this study, we consider a rebalancing problem when product demands are likely to undergo remarkable changes over time. We assume that the customer demands are already given and all allocations to workstations are made according to the required cycle time. After the disturbance, the tasks should be reassigned to the workstations according to the required cycle time in the new demand pattern. Furthermore, the rebalancing is considered by introducing assignment restrictions if machinery is too heavy for being moved to another workstation.
Genetic algorithm and decision support for assembly line balancing in the automotive industry
Published in International Journal of Production Research, 2023
J. B. H. C. Didden, E. Lefeber, I. J. B. F. Adan, I. W. F. Panhuijzen
Assembly lines are typically used in mass-production facilities as they allow products to be finished faster with a high level of efficiency. Assembly lines were first introduced in the early 1900s in the Ford factories, allowing for the fast production of the Model-T as each car was exactly the same (Ford and Crowther 1922). Nowadays, customers desire high customisation while still maintaining a short lead time. The use of manual labor allows for a variety of models to be produced on the same assembly line, as operators are highly flexible. Implementing these machines lead to considerably high investment costs, thus making the planning and configuration of these assembly lines of high importance (Boysen, Fliedner, and Scholl 2007).