Design of materials preparation processes

Project time: 2014 – 2017

Budget: 5 750 085 SEK

Funding: FFI – Strategic Vehicle Research and Innovation

The project “Design of Materials Preparation Processes” deals with materials preparation as a means for the production system to manage the increasing numbers of component variants, which is an ever growing challenge in modern assembly operations.

Materials preparation is a term introduced by the project, referring to materials handling operations in supply systems that configure materials according to assembly requirements—to enable supply to assembly by kitting or sequenced deliveries. To be effective, materials preparation must be designed so that it can be performed with high levels of flexibility, quality, time efficiency and ergonomics, at low cost. The use of materials preparation is increasing, but the knowledge on how to design the materials preparation in order to achieve desired levels of performance is limited, both in literature and in practice. On these grounds, the purpose of the research project is stated as: to expand knowledge of how the desired performance of materials preparation, in terms of flexibility, quality, time efficiency, and ergonomics, influences the design of materials preparation, which reflects the problem of the designer of the materials preparation process in industry. The project addresses materials preparation for kit- and sequence-based materials supply to masscustomised, mixed-model, and manual assembly systems. Six research questions were formulated to address the project purpose, each question focusing a particular link between variables in the materials preparation design and one or more of the materials preparation performance objectives. Phase 1 of the project involved workshops and study visits for clarifying the propositions which the project sought to address. Phase 2 involved three deep multiple case studies—studying flexibility, quality and time efficiency—and phase 3 utilised experiments to address narrow but important relations between the materials preparation design and performance. Phase 4 involved summary, conceptualisation and dissemination of the derived knowledge. The objectives which were specified as different deliverables in the project application were achieved over the course of the project. The answer to research question 1 shows how the values of the design variables influence the flexibility of the materials preparation, where the resulting framework is useful for practitioners to assess flexibility and for academics to account for flexibility when studying trade-offs for design decisions. The answer to research question 2 support previous research in several regards, for example in terms of the effect on the quality outcome from disturbances stemming from empty packaging handling. Answering research question 3 revealed aspects of critical importance to the time efficiency of materials preparation systems, including aspects in both the design and the context. The answer to research question 4 demonstrated that batch preparation can offer significant benefits in terms of time efficiency, while the answer to research question 5 showed the extent to which the type of picking information system influences time efficiency. Answering research question 6 showed the influence of materials exposure on the picking time and ergonomics. 4 All studies were performed collaboratively between practitioners and researchers, why the results were automatically implemented in the project companies’ activities, as well as communicated to both students and professionals through courses at Chalmers. There has been and still is a great interest for the problem area that the project addressed. Throughout the project, the research considered the problems experienced in industry by
means of the companies involved in the research project, together with recommended research directions from previous research. The findings of the research project contributes
to practice by providing guidance to the materials preparation designer in terms of the performance to expect when choosing among options of the materials preparation design variables. The theoretical contribution of the project pertains to the developed frameworks that describes the relations between materials preparation design and performance. Future research efforts should focus methods for measuring the quality outcome in practice, which if available, would allow more knowledge on the quality outcome from different design options to be attained. Two other interesting questions for future research regards how combinations of different picking information technologies may influence the performance and how batching policies employing higher number of packages in the batch interacts with the picking information system in the effect on performance. The frameworks developed by the current project would serve well to such ends.

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