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This paper proposes a new type of assembly line worker assignment and balancing problem (ALWABP) which considers ergonomic risks. ALWABP occurs when task times vary according to the assigned worker. Although the operation time of a task is assumed to be fixed in classical assembly lines, it depends on the operator who executes the task in ALWABP. In ALWABP literature, the primary and secondary objectives are minimizing cycle time and balancing workload among workstations smoothly, respectively. When smoothing workload, only task times are taken into consideration in the relevant literature. However, degree of difficulty of tasks is also very important. Two workers executing two different stations with the same station time are assumed to be equally loaded according to the traditional perception. In fact, even they have the same station time; their workloads are different because of the different tasks they execute, in real life assembly line configurations. In order to close this gap between the real life and the literature, this study introduces an ALWABP problem with considering ergonomic risk factors (ErgoALWABP). Due to the complex nature of the problem, optimum seeking methods are not capable of solving it. So, the proposed problem is tackled with the multiple-rule based constructive randomized search approach. Also, OCcupational Repetitive Action method is used for making ergonomic risk assessment. Performance of the proposed solution procedure is compared with the relevant literature on benchmark data. Experimental results show that ergonomic environment could be improved when ergonomic risk factors are taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern manufacturing systems are expected to be flexible and efficient in order to cope with challenging market demands. Thus, they must be flexible enough as to meet changing requirements such as changes in production, energy efficiency, performance optimization, fault tolerance to process or controller faults, among others. Demanding requirements can be defined as a set of quality of service (QoS) requirements to be met. This paper proposes a generic and customizable multi-agent architecture that, making use of distributed agents, monitors QoS, triggering, if needed, a reconfiguration of the control system to recover QoS. As a proof of concept, the architecture has been implemented to provide availability of the control system understood as service continuity. The prototype has been tested in a case study consisting of an assembly cell where assessment of the approach has been conducted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of the current product configurators defined for the small or medium-sized enterprise one-of-a-kind production (SME OKP) with the dominant variation of the product by typology are derived from the assemble-to-order (ATO) production configurators. Unfortunately, they do not provide the customers with the possibility to adjust the products to their specific needs and further configuration-related actions through specialized software interfaces are required. On the basis of a detailed 1-year-long customer behavior tracking and analysis, the following key issues of the actual configurators have been defined: a low degree of the product adjustment, the complexity of the process of modeling the adjusted product, the extension of the leading time, a separated process of modeling, and the establishment of the communication channel between the customer and the manufacturer in the real time. The proposed solution is based on integrating the existing configurators into one common software application. It should act mainly as the necessary real-time communication channel between the customer and manufacturer in order to alleviate the effects of the product complex paradox. With this concept, the reduction of the leading time is observed as the additional positive effect. The case study illustrates the basic principles and technology required for the practical realization of the proposed solution for the configuration processes of the products in the SME OKP for the PVC windows manufacturing in the hybrid manufacturing cloud environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]