Parallel Workforce Assignment Problem for Battery Production

Aslıhan Erdoğan, Ayşenur Talı, Berfu Kırcalı, Buket Günal, Ecem Nazlı Dedecengiz, Damla Yüksel*, Banu Yetkin Ekren

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book / Report / Conference proceedingConference contributionAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

This paper studies workforce assignment problem for battery production in a company in Turkey. Several types of batteries are produced in the studied company. Mostly, the operations are semi-automated. In the production process, the workers are assigned to multiple operations irregularly based on the priority of productions. In the company, average utilization of worker is low, and average cycle time of a product is high due to inefficient allocation of the workforce within the operations. In order to analyze the main system problem, we simulate the system and observe the queue lengths to identify the bottlenecks. By dynamic assignment of workers at stations based on real time queue conditions, the workloads can be balanced throughout the production lines. In this project, a simulation-based system improvement is completed by applying: (i) dynamic utilization of workforce to reduce average cycle time of a battery, (ii) assignment of parallel workforce where they can work for the same operation simultaneously, and (iii) observation of real-time queue lengths of stations. Three dynamic assignment policies are developed and compared with each other. The best policy providing minimum cycle time for a battery production is selected to be the best.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationDigitizing Production Systems - Selected Papers from ISPR 2021
EditorsNuman M. Durakbasa, M. Güneş Gençyılmaz
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Pages747-756
Number of pages10
ISBN (Print)9783030904203
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022
EventInternational Symposium for Production Research, ISPR2021 - Virtual, Online
Duration: 7 Oct 20219 Oct 2021

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering
ISSN (Print)2195-4356
ISSN (Electronic)2195-4364

Conference

ConferenceInternational Symposium for Production Research, ISPR2021
CityVirtual, Online
Period7/10/219/10/21

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Keywords

  • Assembly line balancing
  • Optimization
  • Simulation modelling
  • Workforce allocation problem
  • Workforce change

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