Jozef Kováč, prof. Ing. CSc. is professor an also a head of Department of Industrial Engineering and Management. His professional activities are oriented on the analysis and development of new methods and practices of integrated design of manufacturing systems and testing of design solutions. Vladimír Rudy, doc. Ing. PhD. is associate professor and also a member of Department of Industrial Engineering and Management. His professional area of activity is oriented on the realization of the laboratory system, virtual reality, innovations and CAx systems. Albert Mareš, Ing. PhD. is assistant professor and also a member of Department of Technologies and Materials. He treats with these activities: virtual reality, CA-technologies and their use in designing and innovation of manufacturing systems, focusing on flexible assembly systems. Juraj Kováč, Ing. PhD. is assistant professor and also a member of Department of Production Systems and Robotics. He deals with the activities like the realization of the laboratory system, creating of physical and virtual models of production systems, experimental verification of the virtual reality principles.

The shortening of the production cycle and increasing impact of the technological innovations evokes improvement of the methods used in the production line scheduling. The aim of the presented research is a proposal of the decision model that enables a flexible reaction to the changing production conditions. The central decisions are substituted by the decisions performed on the independent machines level. The machines utilize rather restricted information on the capacities utilization of their technological neighbours. The decisions follow the decision tables (decision chromosomes) re-coded in the course of the evolution. The Genetic algorithms standing behind the model, enable identification of the highly acceptable solutions that is proved by a set of the simulation experiments. The set of independent machines becomes self-organized, having a significant positive effect on the production line capacities utilization. The decentralization aspect makes our proposal somewhat different from other research in the field. The philosophy is built on the fact that each machine makes its production decision based on the available information, which it has at its disposal in a given time. The machine flexible reacts to its neighbours' capacity utilization (machine before and after given production machine) in the production process flow.

An optimization of the production process is defined as the search for solutions with improved production efficiency. Process optimization should be one of the main components of a business strategy that not only delivers benefits to customers but also helps increase the performance of production processes and benefits the entire business. The traditional approaches to job shop scheduling are based on the exact mathematically formalized model. If the number of model parameters is high and the environment is rather uncertain, the practical applications are quite restricted. That is why the theory proposes an approach based on a large-scale computer simulation. The main goal of this paper is to show that in a concrete company case, the simulation-based approach provides increased productivity. The presented study proposes the practical application of the Tecnomatix software used in the research to optimize the production system. The partial aims of the paper are as follows: (1) to create a simulation model of the production system with the help of the Plant Simulation module, (2) to model the current state of matters in the company, and (3) to propose a solution to the problem. Ultimately, we show that the simulation approach to the production line control provides rather effective solutions when compared to the intuitive one based on trial-and-error experience. The improvement includes a significant (1) shortening of the production cycle and (2) increase in productivity.

This paper evaluates the results of research aimed at changing the rolling speed and the effect of foreign particles in the steel strip, as well as the forces in the rolling process. It also compares the correlation of lab results, theoretical expectations and real-life observations. It supplements the already existing practices aimed at strip-break elimination that were developed and implemented worldwide. Records from a five-stand tandem mill were used for the data analysis. The historical databases developed based on incidents (strip breaks) since 2013 were used; the detailed position of each strip break was documented, along with defects found at the portions of steel strips that broke or the information that no defect was found. The paper contains an evaluation of metallographic analyses of the samples of the strip breaks.

The goal of this paper is to find suitable solutions for process optimization using PDCA methodology and quality management tools. It was realized in the company that is oriented on the assembly of key sets, locks and handles. It analyzes chosen assembly processes, their critical points and identifies root causes of problems that might occur during assembly. For this purpose, different quality methods and tools are used. In this paper there are also defined the corrective actions to avoid recurrence of identified problems, implementation of these actions in production process and its standardization.