The Black & Decker factory in Easton, Maryland, uses parallel, off-line assembly lines to produce multiple models in small, infrequent production runs. The University of Maryland and Black & Decker have implemented an Internet-based work instructions system that supports parallel, off-line assembly. Black & Decker personnel create and update easy-to-read paperless work instructions, and each as...

The self-assembly of the protein shell ("capsid") of a virus appears to obey the law of mass action (LMA) despite the fact that viral assembly is a nonequilibrium process. In this paper we examine a model for capsid assembly, the "assembly line model," that can be analyzed analytically. We show that, in this model, efficient viral assembly from a supersaturated solution is characterized by a sh...

Line balancing means balancing the production line, or any assembly line. The main objective of line balancing is to distribute the task over the each work station so that idle time of labor of machine can be minimized. Line balancing aims at grouping the resources or labor in an efficient and best pattern in order to obtain an optimum or proper balance of the resources and flows of the product...

Today’s aerospace assembly is a huge manual task according to strictly controlled instructions, where different operators are responsible for different areas. This harmonizes with the overall lean approach, but the assembly is very time-consuming and some tasks are not ergonomically friendly, such as assembly tasks inside a wing box. Here, it could be possible to increase automation with the ai...

This paper describes an intelligent assembly algorithm for part mating in an in-line continuous transfer system by integrating neural net work and fuzzy set theory. The fuzzy set theory copes with the imprecision and vagueness associated with actual assembly task, while the neural net theory copes with limitation of fixed fuzzy rule by learning. The assembly performance of the intelligent algor...

A ctin fi lament production is a “green” industry. New fi laments are assembled from a renewable pool of actin monomers, recycled from older, depolymerizing fi laments. Okreglak and Drubin now reveal that old fi laments aren’t always completely broken down— short fragments generated by the severing protein cofi lin are reused directly to construct new actin structures (1). Voytek Okreglak and D...

Microfluidic technology has revolutionized the control of flows at small scales giving rise to new possibilities for assembling complex structures on the microscale. We analyze different possible algorithms for assembling arbitrary structures, and demonstrate that a sequential assembly algorithm can manufacture arbitrary 3D structures from identical constituents. We illustrate the algorithm by ...

A wide variety of combinatorial optimization problems have been studied in recent years Of particular interest are a class of optimization problems arising from the manufacturing of vehicles on assembly lines These problems consist of sequencing the vehicles that are going to be produced such that their production is done in an e cient cost e ective manner In this thesis we introduce a real wor...