Assembly line rebalancing and worker assignment considering ergonomic risks in an automotive parts manufacturing plant

Abstract

This paper recommends a new kind of assembly line rebalancing and worker assignment problem, taking ergonomic risks into account. Assembly line rebalancing problem (ALRBP) occurs when a current line must be rebalanced due to conditions such as changes in demand, production processes, product design, or quality issues. Although there are several research attempts on ALRBP in the relevant literature, only a few studies consider workers as unique individuals. This paper aims to solve the double reassignment problem: tasks to workers and workers to stations, considering ergonomic risk factors. This paper is the first study that comprises worker assignment and ergonomic constraints in ALRBP literature to the best of our knowledge. Objectives of our novel problem are to minimize rebalancing cost, which includes transportation of tasks and workers and minimize stations' ergonomic risk factors. A randomized constructive rule-based heuristic approach is developed to cope with the problem. The proposed solution approach is applied to benchmark data, and obtained results are promising. Moreover, the proposed solution approach is implemented in an automotive parts manufacturing plant.

A detailed review and analysis of assembly line rebalancing problems

“…A single product model is manufactured in single model ALs (Becker and Scholl, 2006). The AL was considered as single model in 75% of the works in ALRBP literature (Antoine et al, 2016;Belassiria et al, 2018;Celik et al, 2014;Çimen et al, 2022;Corominas et al, 2008;Fattahi and Samouei, 2016;Gamberini et al, 2006Gamberini et al, , 2009Li, 2017;Li and Boucher, 2017;Makssoud et al, 2013Makssoud et al, , 2015Mokhtari and Mozdgir, 2015;Otto and Scholl, 2011;Rahman, 2010;Samadhi and Sumihartati, 2016;Sancı and Azizo glu, 2017;Serin et al, 2019;Sikora et al, 2017;Yılmaz and Erol, 2005;Zha and Yu, 2014;Zhang et al, 2018aZhang et al, , 2018bZhang et al, , 2018c.…”

“…Moreover, task times may be worker-dependent which means that task times get different values according to an assigned worker who performs the tasks in the workstation. In the reviewed papers, worker-dependent task times occur in two studies (Çimen et al, 2022;Fattahi and Samouei, 2016). Moreover, the worker assignment problem was also incorporated in the ALRBP in nine publications (Budak and Chen, 2020;Çimen et al, 2022;Corominas et al, 2008;Fattahi and Samouei, 2016;Karas and Ozcelik, 2021;Michels and Costa, 2021;Sikora et al, 2017;Yang et al, 2013;Yang and Gao, 2016).…”

“…In the reviewed papers, worker-dependent task times occur in two studies (Çimen et al, 2022;Fattahi and Samouei, 2016). Moreover, the worker assignment problem was also incorporated in the ALRBP in nine publications (Budak and Chen, 2020;Çimen et al, 2022;Corominas et al, 2008;Fattahi and Samouei, 2016;Karas and Ozcelik, 2021;Michels and Costa, 2021;Sikora et al, 2017;Yang et al, 2013;Yang and Gao, 2016). Corominas et al (2008) tried to minimize the number of temporary (unskilled) workers who should work alongside skilled workers and cannot perform some tasks, leading to worker assignment restrictions.…”

“…The first column of Table 4 indicates the related references. The second column states the papers whose objective is minimizing the cycle time (Çimen et al, 2022;Fattahi and Samouei, 2016;Girit and Azizo glu, 2021;Hu et al, 2020;Karas and Ozcelik, 2021;Li et al, 2016;Li, 2017;Sancı and Azizo glu, 2017;Sikora et al, 2017;Zhang et al, 2018cZhang et al, , 2018bZhang et al, , 2018aZhang et al, , 2020 Otto and Scholl, 2011;Yang et al, 2013;Yang and Gao, 2016). The fourth column of Table 4 shows the articles whose objective is to maximize the efficiency of the AL.…”

Minimizing operating expenditures for a manufacturing system featuring quality reassurances, probabilistic failures, overtime, and outsourcing

“…The sensitivity analyses results indicate that implementing a partial outsourcing policy could increase the profit of the retailer, manufacturer, and the entire supply chain. Other studies (Reynard, 1998;Zhu, 2015;Ramasubbu et al, 2019;Dekker et al, 2020;Ishida et al, 2020;Ouaddi et al, 2020;Chiu et al, 2021a,b;Çimen et al, 2022;Sung et al, 2022;Waiyawuththanapoom and Jermsittiparsert, 2022) disclosed the impact of overtime and subcontracting's diverse strategies on planning and expediting the fabrication batch time. Few past works focused on minimizing operating expenditures for a manufacturing system with quality reassurances, probabilistic failures, overtime, and outsourcing.…”