Given an assembly task as specified by a sequence of subtasks, an autonomous assembly system is capable to achieve the specified goal within a known or unknown environment, without human interaction, from an initial unknown location, with uncertain sensing, uncertain execution, and uncertain actuation. Given an automotive general assembly task and its associated environment, autonomous assembly...

Assembly lines for mass manufacturing incrementally build production items by performing tasks on them while flowing between workstations. The configuration of an assembly line consists of assigning tasks to different workstations in order to optimize its operation subject to certain constraints such as the precedence relationships between the tasks. The operation of an assembly line can be opt...

Computer based discrete event simulation (DES) is one of the most commonly used aids for the design of automotive manufacturing systems. However, DES tools represent machines in extensive detail, while only representing workers as simple resources. This presents a problem when modelling systems with a highly manual work content, such as an assembly line. This paper describes research at Cranfie...

The concept of “lean” has roots in mass production, originally in the automotive industry, and most famously, at Toyota, where Ford Motor’s original Rouge manufacturing complex was used as its benchmark. Toyota’s managers studied the text of Today and Tomorrow, a book written during 1926 by Henry Ford. Ford conceived the idea of a moving assembly line, after observing the meat packing plants in...

Continuous process improvement is critical for organisations to stay in business. An automotive component manufacturer faced productivity challenges after the launch of a new hybrid C-SUV automobile South Africa. This paper aims improve seat cover sewing line through balancing technique. The use standard times balance production initially led bottlenecks, and cycle time was above takt assembly ...

Abstract This article deals with issues related to the flow of material assembly line and examines possibilities reducing costs this process. It is based on current state transport individual parts producing company storage system using Kanban Just in Sequence (JIS) logistics technologies, subsequent collection for line. The change technology has led a reduction total space costs, at same time,...

in this paper, based on the background of cost-oriented assembly line balancing problems, a novel mathematical model for scheduling and balancing the assembly line is offered that with the combination of task sequence-dependent setup time, parallel stations and resource constraint, minimizes the operational and investment costs of assembly system. due to the complexity of the problem, the equat...