In this paper a new problem called Assembly Line Worker Assignment and Balancing Problem (ALWABP) is introduced. This problem arises in those assembly lines where we have certain limited resources available (normally workers) in which the operation time for every task is different depending on who executes the task, and where there are also some task-worker incompatibilities defined. The proble...

Urinary levels of free adrenaline and noradrenaline were measured in two groups of healthy male industrial workers exposed to alternate four-day periods of working conditions with and without time stress, to test the hypothesis that the sympathetic nervous system is overactivated by occupational stress. Thirty confectionary workers alternated piece-work (payment by results) and work with a fixe...

Two-sided assembly lines are designed to produce large and complex products, where workers can perform on both sides at the same time. This paper establishes a mathematical model for multi-objective two-sided line balancing problems with additional constraints (MOATALBP). The considers workers’ skill balance of line, aimings maximize efficiency minimize cost smoothness index. A harmony search a...

This paper reports on a strategy to improve and renovate assembly lines, including countermeasures to prevent low back pain during the past two decades at Toyota Motor Co. Since 1975, there have been problems with low back pain at Toyota's vehicle assembly lines. To deal with these low back pain problems, it was necessary to determine their causes and to quantitatively evaluate the burden on wo...

Shipbuilding is one of the most complex production systems in manufacturing industry because incredible variety parts and highly processes. However, plans are currently prepared manually depending on experience expert workers. In this paper, a planning method based shipbuilding process simulation proposed for use actual shipyards, which simultaneously satisfies needs both managers, who require ...

This paper presents the results of the wearable computing prototype supporting trainingand qualification activities at the SKODA production facilities in Czech Republic. The emerged prototype is based upon the first of the 2 main “Variant Production Showcases” (training and assembly-line) which are to be implemented in the WearIT@work project (EC IP 004216). As an introduction, the authors of t...

This paper argues that the degree to which a given industry’s labor contracts are complete or incomplete is the major factor determining whether its workforce will be unionized. For instance, assembly line industries feature complete labor contracts because of the nature of the production technology: Either a worker keeps up with the line, or he does not. In such a situation, there is no chance...

A previous study in a car assembly plant showed that production-line workers had a lower incidence rate of heart attacks than executive staff. In the present study some major coronary risk factors and 24-hour ambulatory electrocardiograms were investigated in two age-matched samples of 30 middle-aged men drawn from these occupations. Men with a known history of heart disease were excluded. Comp...

This paper presents a new mathematical programming model for the bi-criteria mixed-model assembly line balancing problem in a just-in-time (JIT) production system. There is a set of criteria to judge sequences of the product mix in terms of the effective utilization of the system. The primary goal of this model is to minimize the setup cost and the stoppage assembly line cost, simultaneously. B...