| 1. |
- Johansson, Pierre, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Assessment Based Information Needs in Manual Assembly
- 2017
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Ingår i: 24th International Conference on Production Research, ICPR 2017. - Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA : DEStech Publications. - 9781605955070 ; :ICPR 2017, s. 366-371
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- To handle the complex and flexible manufacturing of today it is vital to have well functional information systems for the operators so that they know when, what and where to assemble. The current designs of assembly work instructions differ much between companies, but also between plants within the same company. The digitalization trends and initiatives such as Industry 4.0 show the manufacturing industry the advantages to incorporate new methods and tools into their businesses. Even though manufacturing IT systems are designed to be adaptive to product and volume changes, they are still widely characterized by their rigid structures. Making large changes to manufacturing IT systems with comprehensive structures is complex and requires large amounts of resources. Therefore, it is important for the manufacturing companies to make the correct investments. In previous studies, two current state analyses have been conducted with the aim to map manufacturing engineering processes and IT systems producing assembly work instructions in a mass customization context. This paper presents results from the third part of a longitudinal study which focuses on identifying operators’ information needs in manual assembly of heavy vehicles. This third study aims to identify the information gap between the current state and the wanted state by assessing information needs at 13 assembly stations in three plants belonging to a global production network. The purpose is to identify design requirements for future assembly information systems enabling the practical use of the digitalization.
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| 2. |
- Ebrahimi, Amir Hossein, 1976, et al.
(författare)
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Automated analysis of interdependencies between product platforms and assembly operations
- 2016
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Ingår i: Procedia CIRP. - : Elsevier BV. - 2212-8271. ; 44, s. 67-72
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Configurable products, like vehicles, face the challenge of handling all possible variants which are needed to answer the various customer needs. For these configurable products the support of all variants need to be addressed both by the design phase and the production phase. The product design phase and the production phase are linked together via operations. These operations model how each part of the bill-of-material is assembled to the final product. Operations also have inner relations among themselves, namely the precedence constraints, stating the order in which different parts can be assembled. Considering only the precedence constraints a product can generally be assembled in various different ways. It is through line balancing that the operations are assigned to different stations and/or assembly workers. The bill-of-material for each configurable product might be different with each variant, which will result in different set of operations. However, due to the precedence rules among the operations not all sets of operations might be possible to complete. The contribution in this paper is a automated method that can determine if all possible product variants can be successfully assembled while still satisfying precedence constraints between operations. The paper also includes an industrial example which further exemplifies the needed input for the method and the possible method outputs as a result of introducing a new variant to the product platform.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Ebrahimi, Amir Hossein, 1976, et al.
(författare)
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Formal analysis of product variability and the effects on assembly operations
- 2015
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Ingår i: IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation, ETFA. - 1946-0759 .- 1946-0740. - 9781467379298
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- A challenge for highly configurable products, like vehicles, is that the product system has to support all possible variants that can be configured by a customer. The production system is often highly automated with software in robots, machines and programmable logic controllers that need to be prepared to handle all possible variants. The link between the product and the assembly system can be expressed through operations where each operation models how a part in the bill-of-material is assembled to the product to be built. Typically the operations have precedence constraints that express that certain parts have to be assembled before other parts might be assembled. Given only the precedence constraints a product can generally be assembled in many different ways and through line balancing the operations are assigned to different stations, machines, and/or assembly workers. For configurable products the bill-of-material might be different for each variant, consequently the necessary operations will be different. However, since the operations have precedence constraints we have to make sure that all possible variants can be successfully assembled while still satisfying all precedence constraints. The contribution in this paper is a fully automated novel method that can determine if all possible product variants can be successfully assembled while still satisfying precedence constraints between operations.
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| 5. |
- Ebrahimi, Amir Hossein, 1976, et al.
(författare)
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Managing product and production variety - A language workbench approach
- 2014
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Ingår i: Procedia CIRP. - : Elsevier BV. - 2212-8271. ; 17, s. 338-344
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Product platforms are commonly used in industries with complex products and high competition like the car and truck industry to allow a customer to order a product that satisfy its unique needs. A consequence of product variety is that manufacturing and assembly processes need to deal with this variety as well. If the variety is low and changes of the product occur infrequently then the variety may be handled by designing the production system for a small set of typical products. But as the variety increases and changes become frequent the necessity for integrated product and production information model is high, to partially solve this problem Product Life Cycle Management (PLM) systems aim at providing an integrated model to all categories of users, e.g. product designers, product preparation engineers, line builders and shop-floor workers. All users need to access the information in the platform and refine and modify the information to reflect new knowledge that has been acquired. Today, most often multiple systems are used where some systems may store information in a structured way but often unstructured text documents are also used. This easily results in redundant information models and automated analysis is not feasible or not event possible because of issues regarding cohesion and traceability of information. The contribution in this paper is to discuss how a new type of tool for building domain specific languages and editors using language workbench approach can be used to support the different user categories in their tasks working with variability of a product and production system while at the same time provide cohesion and traceability of information.
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| 6. |
- Fasth Berglund, Åsa, 1978, et al.
(författare)
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CREATING STRATEGIES FOR GLOBAL ASSEMBLY INSTRUCTIONS – CURRENT STATE ANALYSIS
- 2014
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Ingår i: The sixth Swedish Production Symposium. - 9789198097412
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper present result from three global companies regarding strategies for creating global instructions, the studies are from a current state perspective. The result is based from a survey with 65 respondents. The designers are responsible for instructions and are from two different areas; assembly and service market. Furthermore a workshop has been arranged were two of three companies participated. Three main issues towards formulating a strategy will be discussed; (1) Information carrier; the results reveal that the most common information carrier for instructions are, Paper, Personal meetings and Desktops. (2) Who is responsible for quality assurance, most answers were production engineers. (3) Are there any standards concerning instruction at your company today? The respondents answered yes or under development in over 80 % of the cases on the question; if it exist any standards today.
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| 7. |
- Johansson, Pierre, 1986
(författare)
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Challenges in Global Multi-Variant Serial Production - A Study of Manufacturing Engineering Processes
- 2016
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Global manufacturing companies have hard times to manage their global production networks as dispersion in their networks increases. Such dispersion is caused by the increasing level of product variety and more parameters to control as the networks grow. Handling product variety becomes more difficult as products become more complex and integrated. Product variety and its impact on productivity have been studied for several years. Those studies show that product variety has negative impact on productivity. There are no signs that product variety will decrease in the future. Nor are there any signs showing that the size of global product networks will decrease over time. Therefore, it is important to understand how product variety affects global production networks.The aim of this thesis is to investigate how global manufacturing companies operate their production networks in terms of manufacturing engineering processes and operational performance with respect to product variety. Due to the size of global production networks, engineering processes and systems tend to be dispersed. Therefore, the focus of this thesis is on studying manufacturing engineering processes in terms of standards for creating assembly work instructions for manual assembly and the effects of high product variety on operational performance in the same production network. In this study similarities and dissimilarities in such processes are mapped within one global production network.Four different cases studies have been designed and conducted collecting important data defining the setup for the investigated production network. Questionnaires, interviews and production data are used to map current manufacturing engineering processes and to study the effects of high product variety on operational performance. Results from the case studies show that the studied production network handles high levels of product variety and that the manufacturing engineering processes are highly dispersed due to lack of global standards. The high level of product variety has negative impact on operational performance as operators are facing unfamiliar product variants on a daily basis. Furthermore, the high level of product variety makes it more difficult for manufacturing engineering to create better and more supportive assembly work instructions.Future research activities should focus more on early phases of the engineering process. By studying the engineering process in more detail, a mature information model can be created defining (1) what information is used, (2) by whom it is used, (3) where in the process it is used and (4) for what purpose the information is used. Such an information model is essential to be able to develop better methods to handle high product variety in global production networks.
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| 8. |
- Johansson, Pierre, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Challenges of handling assembly information in global manufacturing companies
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 1741-038X .- 1758-7786. ; 31:5, s. 955-976
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe challenges the manufacturing industry is currently facing when developing future assembly information systems. More specific, this paper focuses on the handling of assembly information from manufacturing engineering to the shop floor operators.Design/methodology/approachMultiple case studies have been conducted within one case company between 2014 and 2017. To broaden the perspective, interviews with additionally 17 large and global manufacturing companies and 3 industry experts have been held. Semi-structured interviews have been the main data collection method alongside observations and web questionnaires.FindingsSix focus areas have been defined which address important challenges in the manufacturing industry. For manual assembly intense manufacturing company, challenges such as IT challenges, process challenges, assembly process disturbances, information availability, technology and process control, and assembly work instructions have been identified and hinder implementation of Industry 4.0 (I4.0).Originality/valueThis longitudinal study provides a current state analysis of the challenges the manufacturing industry is facing when handling assembly information. Despite the vast amount of initiatives within I4.0 and digitalization, this paper argues that the manufacturing industry needs to address the six defined focus areas to become more flexible and prepared for the transition toward a digitalized manufacturing industry.
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| 9. |
- Johansson, Pierre, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Current state of standardized work in automotive industry in Sweden
- 2013
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Ingår i: Procedia CIRP. - : Elsevier BV. - 2212-8271. ; 7, s. 151-156
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Standardized work has been one of several larger research topics in the automotive industry over the years. This paper gives a brief view of the current situation of standardized work in the automotive industry in Sweden. The paper is based on recently performed studies at several automotive actors in Sweden. Most of the present research about standardized work focuses on local premises. Therefore, this paper suggests more focus in future research on how to implement standardized work in global organizations focusing on local demands and cultural differences and similarities. © 2013 The Authors.
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| 10. |
- Johansson, Pierre, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Data and Information Handling in Assembly Information Systems – A Current State Analysis
- 2017
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Ingår i: Procedia Manufacturing. - : Elsevier BV. - 2351-9789. ; 11, s. 2099-2106
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Products become more complex as the general technology development reaches new levels. These new technologies enable manufacturing companies to offer better products with new functionalities to their customers. Complex products require adequate manufacturing systems to cope with changing product requirements. In general, manufacturing of this type of products entails complex structured and rigid IT systems. Due to the system’s complexity and comprehensive structure, it becomes challenging to optimize the information flow. There are improvement potentials in how such systems could be better structured to meet the demands in complex manufacturing situations. This is particularly true for the vehicle manufacturing industry where growth in many cases has occurred through acquisitions, resulting in increased levels of legacy IT systems. Additionally, this industry is characterized by high levels of product variety which contributes to the complexity of the manufacturing processes. In manual assembly of these products, operations are dependent on high quality assembly work instructions to cope with the complex assembly situations. This paper presents a current state analysis of data and information handling in assembly information systems at multiple production sites at a case company manufacturing heavy vehicles. On basis of a certain set of characterizing manual assembly tasks for truck, engine and transmission assembly, this work focuses on identifying what data that is used in manufacturing engineering processes and IT systems to produce assembly work instructions. This work aims to identify gaps in the information flow between manufacturing engineering and shop floor operations.
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