Title: Creating agility by simplifying product flow in a multiproduct assembly line

Authors: V. Dhanalakshmi, K. Sankaranarayanasamy, Subramaniam Arunachalam, S.C.Lenny Koh

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai 625 015, Tamil Nadu, India. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Trichirappalli 620015, Tamil Nadu, India. ' School of Computing and Technology, University of East London, Essex, UK. ' Management School, University of Sheffield, 9 Mappin Street, Sheffield S1 4DT, UK

Abstract: Agile manufacturing is an emerging concept in industry that aims at achieving flexibility and responsiveness to the changing market needs. The agility concept has an impact on design of products and control of manufacturing systems. Most research on Design For Assembly (DFA) has focused on single product rather than multiple products. In the design of a multiproduct assembly line, the flow of products is an important factor to be considered. Out of the five types of flow, the backtracking flow is the least desirable because it complicates the flow and the serial flow is the most desirable flow since it eases control of manufacturing and material handling. In this paper, an algorithm is developed to identify and to eliminate the critical pair, which causes backtracking. The algorithm can be used by the designers, in design and redesign of products, in simplifying the production flow and hence in improving the manufacturing performance.

Keywords: agile manufacturing; product flows; design for assembly; DFA; multiproduct; assembly lines; backtracking flow; serial flow; critical pair; product mix.

DOI: 10.1504/IJENM.2006.011702

International Journal of Enterprise Network Management, 2006 Vol.1 No.2, pp.166 - 178

Published online: 15 Dec 2006 *

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