Title: Effective relationships of factors in a manual assembly line environment

Authors: Jaakko Peltokorpi; Mika Lohtander; Sampsa V.A. Laakso

Addresses: Engineering Design and Production Department, Aalto University School of Engineering, P.O. Box 14200, Aalto 00076, Finland ' LUT Mechanical Engineering, Lappeenranta University of Technology, P.O. Box 20 FI-53851 Lappeenranta, Finland ' Engineering Design and Production Department, Aalto University School of Engineering, P.O. Box 14200, Aalto 00076, Finland

Abstract: A manual assembly line environment includes a large number of factors that affect the performance of the system. At the moment, these factors and their effects are investigated in separate research papers that relate to different disciplines, and thus there is an increasing need to handle them together. This study contributes to the understanding of these factors and their relationships from both an operations and a human perspective. The factors are examined in the case of a mixed-model assembly line in which process design and agile responses to variation are the key features in terms of performance. The information on the relevant factors and their effects is primarily based on the literature. The study shows that a network analysis method can be used to present this information in a more visual and understandable form to show the importance, connections, and commonality of factors.

Keywords: manual assembly; assembly lines; mixed models; complexity; effective relationships; performance factors; operations management; human resource management; HRM; network analysis; system performance; process design; agile responses; agility; variation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEME.2014.066945

International Journal of Engineering Management and Economics, 2014 Vol.4 No.3/4, pp.267 - 290

Received: 21 Oct 2013
Accepted: 08 Mar 2014
Published online: 17 Jan 2015 *

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