The purpose of our master thesis was to investigate what motivates assembly line workers performing low-skill jobs in a small industrial laundry business. We wanted to see what fac-tors determine and influence their motivation to work and if and how this motivation can be improved with respect to assembly line systems in general. The method of our investiga-tion was qualitative in nature, where we studied one firm that leases clean bed clothes and textiles to hotels and restaurants around Sweden. We constructed a survey on motivation and handed it out to the assembly line workers who deal with the laundry. Furthermore, we interviewed the shift manager in order to get the company’s view on employee motivation. Our findings indicate that there are several overlapping factors that determine and influ-ence motivation in the long run. From this particular case we saw that a unified working culture and collective efforts both boost the willingness to work and help the process run smoothly. Furthermore, proper communication is motivating, where everyone should be committed to company goals, but the workers should be able to take part in profits, and not just generate them. Also, employees have to be considered as important as customers are. Another factor is to have the right resources to execute company plans, such as proper working techniques that minimise stress, injuries and frustration, and more responsibility that allows employees to see the whole system by learning about the technical aspects, or engaging in customer contacts. When trust builds up between the workers and the man-agement, there will be less need for a controlling boss, and people will be more motivated to work when they are not constantly monitored by their leader. In addition, more CEO visits are encouraged at plant level, because they send the signal that the company cares about all its employees. Finally, a crucial factor is feedback, where the firm should not only criticise, but praise everyone for a job well done. This way, the workers will feel worthy. When long term factors are weak or missing in the company, the only motivation for the people is money. However, money can work as a short term and a long term motivator be-cause it serves as a tool to satisfy needs of both security and self esteem outside work. Con-sidering motivation and assembly lines in general, when the assembly line is at its core, where efficiency is the goal and workers serve as means to get there, the only motivation is money, and possibly working colleagues. Intrinsic motivation can be reached by moving away from the actual system and performing other tasks. Still, the long term factors can improve the situation to a certain extent, but sooner or later everyone will turn into a well oiled machine with no further ways to improve motivation, since boredom and routines will remain. One goes from being a cog in the machinery to an integral part of a successful engine. It is still the same content, but in a different package.

A fascinating feature of bucket brigade assembly lines is that work load on workers is balanced spontaneously as workers follow some simple rules in the assembly process. This self-organizing property significantly reduces the management effort on an assembly line. We generalize this idea in several directions. These include an adapted bucket brigade protocol for complex assembly networks, a generalized model that permits chaotic behavior, and a more detailed model for a flow line in which jobs arrive arbitrarily in time and are introduced into the system at several points on the line.

This work develops optimal assembly sequences for modular building blocks. The underlying concept is that an automated device could take a virtual shape such as a CAD file, and automatically decide how to physically build the shape using simple, identical building blocks. This entails deciding where to place blocks inside the shape and generating an efficient assembly sequence that a robot could use to build the shape. The blocks are defined in a general, parameterized manner such that the model can be easily modified in the future. The primary focus of this work is the development of methods for generating assembly sequences in a time-feasible manner that ensure static stability at each step of the assembly. Most existing research focuses on complete enumeration of every possible assembly sequence and evaluation of many possible sequences. This, however, is not practical for systems with a large number of parts for two reasons: (1) the number of possible assembly sequences is exponential in the number of parts, and (2) each static stability test is very time-consuming. The approach proposed here is to develop a multi-hierarchical rule-based approach to assembly sequences. This is accomplished by formalizing and justifying both high-level and mid-level assembly rules based on static considerations. Application of these rules helps develop assembly sequences rapidly. The assembly sequence is developed in a time-feasible manner according to the geometry of the structure, rather than evaluating statics along the way. This work only evaluates the static stability of each step of the assembly once. The behavior of the various rules is observed both numerically and through theory, and guidelines are developed to suggest which rules to apply. A secondary focus of this work is to introduce methods by which the inside of the structure can be optimized. This structure optimization research is implemented by genetic algorithms that solve the multi-objective optimization problem in two dimensions, and can be extended to three dimensions.

In this thesis, we define a new problem area for assembly lines. In the literature, there are various studies on assembly line balancing, but none of them consider multi-manned tasks, task to which at least two operators have to be assigned. Two mathematical models and one constraint programming model are developed for both Type-I and Type-II ALB problems. The objective of Type-I problem is to minimize the number of stations whereas the objective of Type-II problem is to minimize the cycle time. In addition to this, valid inequalities are introduced to make models more efficient. Moreover, heuristic algorithms for both types are developed for large-sized problems. All formulations are applied to a real case study and then experimental analysis are conducted for all formulations to see the effects of problem parameters on performance measures. Exact models are compared each other and performance of heuristic algorithms are compared against the lower bounds.

ABSTRACT FLEXIBLE ASSEMBLY LINE DESIGN PROBLEM WITH FIXED NUMBER OF WORKSTATIONS Barut&ccedil / uoglu, Sirin M.S. Department of Industrial Engineering Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Meral Azizoglu July 2009, 70 pages In this thesis, we study a Flexible Assembly Line Design problem. We assume the task times and equipment costs are correlated in the sense that for all tasks the cheaper equipment gives no smaller task time. Given the cycle time and number of workstations we aim to find the assignment of tasks and equipments to the workstations that minimizes the total equipment cost. We study a special case of the problem with identical task times. For the general case, we develop a branch and bound algorithm that uses powerful lower bounds and reduction mechanisms. We test the performance of our branch and bound algorithm on randomly generated test problems. The results of our experiments have revealed that we are able to solve large-sized problem instances in reasonable times.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1978. / Typescript.

The main purpose of this research is to study the impact of the empowerment Job Design (JD) techniques on the satisfaction of the blue-collars’ motivational needs in the context of assembly line system in the automotive industry. We have developed this purpose aiming to make a theoretical contribution due to the fact that only a few studies were developed and were linked to the empowerment model developed by Conger and Kanungo (1988) which is a JD model relevant for the context of assembly line work which is qualified as repetitive and monotone. To fulfil this gap, we have established a conceptual model based on the empowerment model developed by Conger and Kanungo (1988) and theories of motivational needs. We conducted our thesis with the following research question as guideline: What are the effects of the empowerment job design on the satisfaction of the blue-collars’ motivational needs in an automotive assembly line system context? Our objective of this research question was: to study the impact of the empowerment Job Design techniques on the blue-collars’ motivational needs thanks to a case study as research design. This research is made independently to the effects of the context on the blue-collar’s motivation. We have conducted a quantitative study from a positivist and objectivist perspective in two MB (Mercedes-Benz) factories: ELC Étoile du Rhône in France (sample part factory) and Rastatt MB (engine factory) in Germany. Also, we have made questionnaires to distribute these to the blue-collars located in these two MB factories which allowed us to get 67 respondents. The set of 15 questions that constitutes our questionnaire dealt with how the empowerment JD techniques affect their motivational needs. Once the data were collected, we used SPSS for statistical analysis. We retrieved some specific analysis such as descriptive statistics, correlations and regressions. In addition to that, we used Cronbach’s Alpha to test the reliability of our results. We measured the impacts of the empowerment JD techniques (participative management, feedback, modelling contingent/ competence based reward, goal setting and job enrichment) on the motivational needs (existence needs, relation-oriented needs and growth-oriented needs). The results of our findings definitely went in the way that the empowerment JD techniques have a positive impact on the satisfaction of the blue-collars’ motivational needs. Indeed, our analysis indicated positive correlations of all of the empowerment JD techniques on the motivational needs except the JD technique "modelling contingent/ competence based reward". Also, we found that the impacts on the relation-oriented needs (RN) were the strongest ones. Thus, we hope that this paper will help the assembly line managers to become aware of their blue-collars’ potential in order to increase their performance and to improve their employees job satisfaction.

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In this thesis, we develop an exact algorithm for an assembly line balancing problem with equipment selection decisions. Two objectives are considered: minimizing the total equipment costs and the number of workstations. Our aim is to choose the type of the equipment(s) in every workstation and determine the assignment of the tasks to each workstation and equipment type. We aim to propose a set of efficient solutions for each problem and leave the choice of the best solution to the decision maker&rsquo / s preferences. A branch and bound algorithm is developed whose efficiency is increased with some dominance rules and powerful lower bounds. Moreover, modified ranked positional weight heuristic method is used as initial upper bound. The effectiveness of the proposed procedure is demonstrated by computational analysis in which the effects of changing certain parameter values are investigated. We find that our algorithm is capable of solving the problem instances with up to 25 tasks and 5 equipments.

Bibliography: leaves 172-184. / xx, 278 leaves : ill. (chiefly col.) ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / An analytical approach to the integrated problems of designing the dynamic cellular manufacturing systems layout concurrently with its material flow (handling) requirements, in such a manner that minimises the material handling within the system. The proposed strategy encourages the design of a dynamic layout to identify simultaneously the machine groups, economical machine distribution, and intracell and intercell layouts. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2001?