Abstract
The effect of workers' learning curve on production rate in manual assembly lines is significant when producing relatively small batches of different products. This research analyzes this effect and suggests applying work-sharing among the workers in such an environment to improve the time to complete the batch, namely, the makespan. Work-sharing refers to a situation where adjacent workers help each other in order to reduce idle times caused by blockage and starvation. We present mixed-integer linear-programing (MILP) formulations, which provide optimal work-sharing mechanism for minimizing the makespan. The effect of work-sharing and existence of buffers on the makespan is examined and compared to a baseline situation, with no work-sharing and buffers. A numerical study is conducted and the results along with some operational insights are presented.
| Original language | English |
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| State | Published - 2013 |
| Event | 22nd International Conference on Production Research, ICPR 2013 - Parana, Brazil Duration: 28 Jul 2013 → 1 Aug 2013 |
Conference
| Conference | 22nd International Conference on Production Research, ICPR 2013 |
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| Country/Territory | Brazil |
| City | Parana |
| Period | 28/07/13 → 1/08/13 |
Keywords
- Assembly-lines
- Cross-training
- Mixed-integer programming
- Work-sharing