• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.160-170
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• 2008

This paper proposes a mathematical model for converting conveyor assembly line to cellular manufacturing in complex production environments. Complex production environments refer to the situations with multi-products, variant demand, different batch sizes and the worker abilities varying with work stations and products respectively. The model proposed in this paper aims to determine (1) how many cells should be formatted; (2) how many workers should be assigned in each cell; (3) and how many workers should be rested in shortened conveyor line when a conveyor assembly line should be converted, in order to optimize system performances which are defined as the total throughput time and total labor power. We refer the model to a new production system. Such model can be used as an evaluation tool in the cases of (i) when a company wants to change its production system (usually a belt conveyor line) to a new one (including cell manufacturing); (ii) when a company wants to evaluate the performance of its converted system. Simulation experiments based on the data collected from the previous documents are used to estimate the marginal impact that each factor change has had on the estimated performance improvement resulting from the conversion.

• IE interfaces
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.240-247
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• 2003

Generally, the assembly system relied on conveyor lines is efficient for mass production. But it is not efficient when the product types are often varying and their lot sizes are small. Especially, it is much inefficient for the assembly lines for the electronic products whose types are varying very often. This paper suggests the design of U-shaped assembly lines to replace the existing conveyor systems. The assembly line for the mini-cassette production is dealt with as a case study. The proposed procedure was successfully applied for the design of U-shaped lines. The developed method resulted in the improvement of the productivity such as the decrease of the man power and the cycle time, and the increase of the line utility.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.209-219
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• 2015

This paper deals with a case study about productivity improvement in medium and small-sized manufacturing factories. It is popular to improve the productivity of lines by shortening the production cycles and assigning multi jobs to workers. We analyze the production lines and improve the productivity in the case study through multi-functional workers and shortened production lines. Based on the case study, we propose some guidelines to improve the productivity of production lines.

• Proceedings of the Safety Management and Science Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.35-39
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• 2008

This paper considers the sequencing of products in mixed model assembly lines. The sequence which minimizes overall utility work in car assembly lines reduce the cycle time, the number of utility workers, and the risk of conveyor stopping. The sequencing problem is solved using Tabu Search. Tabu Search is a heuristic method which can provide a near optimal solution in real time. Various examples are presented and experimental results are reported to demonstrate the efficiency of the technique.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 1997.04a
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• pp.719-723
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• 1997

The welding automation in ship manufacturing process,especially in the sub-assembly line is considered to be a difficult job because the welding part is too huge, various, unstructured for a welding robot to weld fully automatically. The weld orocess at the sub-assembly line for ship manufacturing is to joint the various stiffener on the base panel. In order to realize automatic robot weld in sub-assembly line, robot have to equip with the sensing system to recognize the position of the parts. In this research,we developed a vision system to detect the position of base panle for sub-assembly line is shipbuilding process. The vision system is composed of one CCD camera attached on the base of robot, 2-500W halogen lamps for active illumination. In the image processing algorithm,the base panel is represented by two set of lines located at its two corner through hough transform. However, the various noise line caused by highlight,scratches and stiffener,roller in conveyor, and so on is contained in the captured image, this nosie can be eliminated by region segmentation and threshold in hough transform domain. The matching process to recognize the position of weld panel is executed by finding patterns in the Hough transformed domain. The sets of experiments performed in the sub-assembly line show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

• IE interfaces
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.35-46
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• 1992

This paper deals with analysis of material handling system efficiency of a heat-exchanger manufacturing line. This line is a typical flow shop type assembly line which consists of 10 steps of assembly stations. Each station have one or two workers who assemble and move components for the job, and no special transporters for component's movement. Therfore, all the workers are involoved in unnecessary moving activities which decrease overall production efficiencies of the line. To improve productivities, production outputs and worker's job performances for this assembly line, the several alternatives are considered such as installing new conveyor lines and automatic guided vehicle(AGV) system. Analyzing economic feasibilities and responses of the system alternatives, an experimental simulation model is built suing SIMAN Ver. 3. 5 simulation language with CINEMA package for animation of the process flow. Through this animation process a vivid picturial analysis could performed on the process flow.

• Korean Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.199-209
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• 2005

In this paper, a digital simulation model for an automotive assembly line is constructed by adapting a digital manufacturing methodology. Applied methodology is a simulation for a plant level of the assembly production line. The first significance of this methodology is a validation of the production planning based on various scenarios. The second is pre-verification for the new production plan or production method. The third is a visualization of the production process. Several models were implemented and those models were verified. Then, it was possible to find a most efficient production scenario and production method.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1996.10b
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• pp.1237-1240
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• 1996

This paper proposes a heuristic algorithm for performing the line balancing of PCB assembly fine including multiple surface mounters efficiently. We consider a PCB assembly line including the multiple surface mounters arranged serially as a target system. We assume that the number of heads of surface mounters can be changed. Also, the conveyor is assumed to move at a constant speed and have no buffer. Considering the minimum number of machines required for the desired production rate is a discrete nonincreasing function which is inversely proportional to the cycle time, we propose an optimization algorithm for line balancing by using the binary search method. Also we propose an head-changing algorithm. The algorithms are validated through the computer simulation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.124-133
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• 2017

In the current lighting market, LEDs that have a high luminous efficiency, a long life and consume less power have emerged as next generation lighting. Owing to various designs and sizes of LEDs, the production process of existing LEDs involves many tasks that require manual labor; hence, the assembly of LEDs necessitates manpower. Because of the use of manpower, the production costs of LEDs increases and production efficiency decreases. Recently, the assembly parts of LEDs have been standardized for minimizing manual labor, and an LED is developed as an LED panel. The automatic assembly system produces LED convergent lighting by assembling two LED panels and one diffusion cover. To increase the production efficiency of the LED convergent lighting module, it is important that the development of a feeder can continuously supply the LED panels is required, and whose design has sufficient stability. The automatic assembly system of the LED convergent lighting module consists of two feeders, which convey LED panels and diffusion covers to a main conveyor, which assembles the lifted panels and covers. In this study, structural analysis and fatigue life for forced loads on the conveyer line of the feeder in the process of lifting LED panels and diffusion covers of each feeder, is analyzed. In addition, the drive of the belt constituting the conveyor line of each feeder is simulated, and the dynamic characteristics of the belt is analyzed using the virtual engineering method.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.229-239
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• 2014

Objective: This research provides a guideline for working area design in the electronic industry, considering gender differences of physical characteristics. Background: Co-work in the electronic industry requires workers of various physical properties to work cohesively in the conveyor line for mass production. This stresses the need for a worker-centered design of the workplace convenient for all the workers. Method: In this research, the $6^{th}$ Size Korea (National Anthropometric Survey in Korea) report is referred to obtain the design measurements according to age and gender varieties. This information is used to provide the working area guideline concerning conveyor line workers of both genders aged 20 to 40. Results: Physical properties of workers and workplace design principles were obtained for application in the assembly, inspection, and material handling process in the electronic industry. Conclusion: Applying ergonomic design principles can provide safe and comfortable workplace for both genders. Application: This research can be fundamentally used in designing worker-centered workplaces.