Problem scenario
The current assembly line is consisted of 14 stations with 27 subtasks and there is one worker per
station as shown in Fig. 1. The average cycle time of the line is 12 second. Each workstation is
connected by a conveyor running at a speed of 0.17 m/s. Note that distance between stations is not
constant and varied due to the position of the machine. The pan is manually loaded by worker at the
first station. However, the average production rate is 271 pan/hr and the average productivity is
19.35 pans per workman hour with 90 percent efficiency. It is obvious that the line output depends
upon the first station to launch a pan onto the conveyor line.
Due to an increasing demand from customers the assembly line must run at 5 sec cycle time with
the expected average of 648 pc/hr with the same current efficiency. As a consequent, the current
assembly line must be improved to attain the new demand.
Applied Mechanics and Materials Vols. 799-800 (2015) pp 1398-1402 Submitted: 2015-06-23
© (2015) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland Accepted: 2015-07-07
doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.799-800.1398 Online: 2015-10-19
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