scholarly journals Evolution Balancing of the Small-Sized Wheel Loader Assembly Line

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Rongshen Lai ◽  
Liang Hou ◽  
Yongming Wu

Assembly line balancing not only directly determines production efficiency but also influences precision and quality of key assemblies or even the overall performance of final products. Driven by market demand and development of science and technology, product family must evolve constantly, which necessitates frequent adjustment and rebalancing of product family assembly line (PFAL). In order to maintain production efficiency, improve assembly quality and precision, and reduce costs for adjustment, the evolution balancing problem of PFAL for small-sized wheel loader is solved in this paper. Firstly, the evolution balancing model of PFAL is put forward. Then, with minimizing the number of workstations, the in-station and between-station load indexes and adjustment costs, and maximizing relevancy between activities as optimization objectives, meanwhile regarding product platform planning, modularity design and the critical chain technology in concurrent engineering as constraint conditions, the evolution balancing problem of PFAL is optimized using improved genetic algorithm (IGA). Finally, the whole analysis procedure is demonstrated by the small-sized wheel loader PFAL case study and the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified.

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 638-663
Author(s):  
Mohd Fadzil Faisae Ab. Rashid ◽  
Ahmad Nasser Mohd Rose ◽  
Nik Mohd Zuki Nik Mohamed ◽  
Fadhlur Rahman Mohd Romlay

Purpose This paper aims to propose an improved Moth Flame Optimization (I-MFO) algorithm to optimize the cost-oriented two-sided assembly line balancing (2S-ALB). Prior to the decision to assemble a new product, the manufacturer will carefully study and optimize the related cost to set up and run the assembly line. For the first time in ALB, the power cost is modeled together with the equipment, set up and labor costs. Design/methodology/approach I-MFO was proposed by introducing a global reference flame mechanism to guide the global search direction. A set of benchmark problems was used to test the I-MFO performance. Apart from the benchmark problems, a case study from a body shop assembly was also presented. Findings The computational experiment indicated that the I-MFO obtained promising results compared to comparison algorithms, which included the particle swarm optimization, Cuckoo Search and ant colony optimization. Meanwhile, the results from the case study showed that the proposed cost-oriented 2S-ALB model was able to assist the manufacturer in making better decisions for different planning periods. Originality/value The main contribution of this work is the global reference flame mechanism for MFO algorithm. Furthermore, this research introduced a new cost-oriented model that considered power consumption in the assembly line design.


Author(s):  
Konstantinos N. Genikomsakis ◽  
◽  
Vassilios D. Tourassis

Assembly Line Balancing (ALB) aims at optimally assigning the work elements required to assemble a product to an ordered sequence of workstations, while satisfying precedence constraints. Notwithstanding the advances and developments in ALB over the years, recent and thorough surveys on this field reveal that only a small percentage of companies employ ALB procedures to configure their assembly lines. This paradox may be attributed, to some extent, to the fact that ALB is addressed mostly under ideal conditions. Despite the time variability inherent in manufacturing tasks, there is a strong research trend towards designing and implementing algorithms that consider ALB on a deterministic basis and focus on the optimality of the proposed task assignments according to existing ALB performance measures. In this paper, the need to assess the performance of the proposed solutions of various algorithms in the literature is corroborated through simulation experiments on a benchmark ALB problem under more realistic conditions. A novel ALB index, namely the Effective Cycle Time, ECT, is proposed to assess the quality of alternative assembly line configurations in paced assembly lines operating under task times variations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 245
Author(s):  
Runxian Yang ◽  
Jie Zhou ◽  
Tao Tao ◽  
Lianghao Hua ◽  
Jianfeng Zhang

In order to improve the production efficiency and elastic quality of spring cable, and meet the market demand of automatic mass production, based on the market research and experimental analysis of common spring cable shaping methods, a rapid shaping method of coil bar current heating spring cable is innovatively proposed. After the spring cable is wound on the coil bar once, the coil bar is directly heated to realize the spring wire temperature rising and setting. The process temperature is input from the man-machine interface, and the temperature control is based on a fuzzy algorithm, which is automatically adjusted by PLC. The experimental results show that, compared with the traditional sizing method, the current heating method proposed in this paper can greatly shorten the product sizing time and has good sizing effect, which can well meet the market requirement of high-quality mass production of spring cable.


2018 ◽  
pp. 72-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joaquín Bautista-Valhondo ◽  
Rocío Alfaro-Pozo

We present a variant of the approach to the assembly line balancing problems, with the aim of reducing the ergonomic risk for operators of mixed-model assembly lines (MILP-3). Specifically, the MILP-3 model is focused on minimizing the average range between ergonomic risk values of workstations. Using a case study from Nissan’s plant in Barcelona, not only are the differences between levels of ergonomic risk of stations reduced, but we attempt to reduce the average maximum ergonomic risk of the assembly line. The new model is compared with two others, MILP-1 and MILP-2, which minimize the average maximum ergonomic risk and the average absolute deviation of the risks, respectively.


2021 ◽  
pp. 56-72
Author(s):  
Tamara Stanković ◽  
Slobodan Čerović

This work is a theoretical and empirical overview of the influence of IDS and social networks on the promotion, sales, and quality of hotel accommodation. The work outlines a theoretical-academic presentation and includes a case study, which was carried out through research in 4-star and 5-star hotels. The research identifies the usage and influence of IDS on promotion, sales, and quality of hotel accommodation, the key advantages of cooperation and areas where it is lacking, as well as the usage and importance of social networks in promotion and sales. The terms "IDS" and "social networks in hotel businesses", their definition and importance are presented in the theoretical part of this work. The focal point of this work is to prove the importance of applying IDS and social networks in promotion, sales, and quality of services, in addition to showing the advantages of cooperation and areas where it is lacking. Furthermore, this work emphasizes the importance of staying up to date and in agreement with the latest innovations and their usage in the hotel industry, as well as the significance of adjusting the offer and services to the market demand.


1974 ◽  
Vol 53 (9) ◽  
pp. 321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoff Buxey ◽  
Martin Burke

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashish Yadav ◽  
Shashank Kumar ◽  
Sunil Agrawal

PurposeMulti-manned assembly lines are designed to produce large-sized products, such as automobiles. In this paper, a multi-manned assembly line balancing problem (MALBP) is addressed in which a group of workers simultaneously performs different tasks on a workstation. The key idea in this work is to improve the workstation efficiency and worker efficiency of an automobile plant by minimizing the number of workstations, the number of workers, and the cycle time of the MALBP.Design/methodology/approachA mixed-integer programming formulation for the problem is proposed. The proposed model is solved with benchmark test problems mentioned in research papers. The automobile case study problem is solved in three steps. In the first step, the authors find the task time of all major tasks. The problem is solved in the second step with the objective of minimizing the cycle time for the sub-tasks and major tasks, respectively. In the third step, the output results obtained from the second step are used to minimize the number of workstations using Lingo 16 solver.FindingsThe experimental results of the automobile case study show that there is a large improvement in workstation efficiency and worker efficiency of the plant in terms of reduction in the number of workstations and workers; the number of workstations reduced by 24% with a cycle time of 240 s. The reduced number of workstations led to a reduction in the number of workers (32% reduction) working on that assembly line.Practical implicationsFor assembly line practitioners, the results of the study can be beneficial where the manufacturer is required to increased workstation efficiency and worker efficiency and reduce resource requirement and save space for assembling the products.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to apply a multi-manned assembly line balancing approach in real life problem by considering the case study of an automobile plant.


2019 ◽  
Vol 889 ◽  
pp. 557-566
Author(s):  
Ly Duc Minh ◽  
Vo Thi Hoang Ni ◽  
Do Ngoc Hien

Continuous improvement of productivity and quality is a potential requirement of any competitive organization. Lean six-sigma is known as the useful and popular method to do it. In this paper, a case study in the mechanical manufacturing process would be presented as a successful implementation. The seven quality control tools would be integrated in specific systematic steps of the PDCA cycle and DMAIC process, and lean technology. The case study shows the promising results on improvement of productivity and quality of a mechanical production line. It could be considered to implement for other production or assembly line in other fields such as electronic assembly line, garment line, and furnitune assembly line.


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