An interesting empirical result in the assembly line literature states that slightly unbalanced assembly lines (in the format of a bowl with central stations less loaded than the external ones) present higher throughputs than perfectly balanced ones. This effect is known as the bowl phenomenon. In this study, we analyze the presence of this phenomenon in assembly lines with integer task times. ...

This report discussed the effect of workstation design, assembly design, jig design and working posture on the assembly of plugs. Two different designs of jig (vertical and rectangular) and two sets of assembly line design (one and two operators) and two set of workstations design (sitting and standing) were studied to observe their effects to productivity. Design of Experiments 2 with two leve...

This paper is concerned about the sequencing problems in pull production systems which are composed of one mixed-model assembly line and one flexible fabrication flow line with limited intermediate buffers. Two objectives are considered simultaneously: minimizing the total variation in parts consumption in the assembly line and minimizing the makespan in the fabrication line. The mathematical m...

An assembly system (AS), a valuable tool for mass production, is generally composed of a number of workstations and a transport system. While the workstations perform some preplanned operations, the transport system moves the assemblies by special designed pallets from one station to another. One common problem associated with automatic assembly systems is that some assembly operations may have...

We propose the Assembly Line Worker Integration and Balancing Problem (ALWIBP), a new assembly line balancing problem arising in lines with conventional and disabled workers. The goal of this problem is to maintain high productivity levels by minimizing the number of workstations needed to reach a given output, while including in the assembly line a number of disabled workers. This problem gain...

Robotic assembly line balancing (RALB) is specific for robotic assembly, where different robots require different assembly times to perform the same task because of their specialization. The problem includes optimal assignment of robots to line stations and balanced distribution of work between different stations. It aims at maximizing the production rate of the line. This problem is solved by ...

The present article focuses on the application of a procedure based on ant colonies to solve an assembly line balancing problem. After an introduction to assembly line problems, the problem under study is presented: the Time and Space constrained Assembly Line Balancing Problem (TSALBP); and a basic model of one of its variants is put forward for study. Subsequently, an ant algorithm is present...

In an effort to increase a productivity of welding process and to reduce the impact to workers from industrial disaster, the research in the field of welding automation is sharply increasing in shipbuilding industry. DSME had developed and successfully applied a welding robot system for grand assembly line in OKPO shipyard in 1997 and has recently developed multi welding robot system for the su...

Looking back a few years, we may notice that we finally abandoned assembly language programming in almost every domain. How did that happen? In part, improvements in compiler technology and hardware speed made high-level languages competitive. But the main reason is that assembly code is inherently not portable: one cannot recompile it for a new architecture. Since recompilation is an off-line ...