Considering Product Life Cycle Stages and Worker Skill Level in Seru Production Systems

Abstract The product life cycle (PLC) stages can be considered as introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. Seru production systems has a potential to perform better where products have high demand variability and low volume during the introduction and decline stages. On the other hand, the assembly line is popular in the final processes of mass production systems due to its high efficiency, low product cost owing to economy of scale, and low labor cost by low-skilled workers. Therefore, an assembly line design is more successful for growth and maturity stages of a product where the demand is more stable. Likewise, if skill level of workers for different tasks have higher variation, assembly line can be considered as a better option. Hybrid system of assembly line and seru production system performs better with workers who have less skill variation. A worker is expected to improve his/her skill levels when performing a task continuously leading to seru production system with low skill level variation. Therefore, this study aims to introduce the details of a preliminary approach considering product life cycle stages and worker skill requirements.

[1]  David R. Rink,et al.  Product life cycle research: A literature review , 1979 .

[2]  Ikou Kaku,et al.  Lessons from seru production on manufacturing competitively in a high cost environment , 2017 .

[3]  Ikou Kaku,et al.  Reducing worker(s) by converting assembly line into a pure cell system , 2013 .

[4]  Dario Ikuo Miyake.  The Shift from Belt Conveyor Line to Work-cell Based Assembly Systems to Cope with Increasing Demand Variation and Fluctuation in The Japanese Electronics Industries , 2006 .

[5]  Ikou Kaku,et al.  Modeling and numerical analysis of line-cell conversion problems , 2009 .

[6]  Ikou Kaku,et al.  Mathematical analysis and solutions for multi-objective line-cell conversion problem , 2014, Eur. J. Oper. Res..

[7]  Gürsel A. Süer,et al.  Intra-cell manpower transfers and cell loading in labor-intensive manufacturing cells , 2005, Comput. Ind. Eng..

[8]  Danny J. Johnson,et al.  Converting assembly lines to assembly cells at sheet metal products: insights on performance improvements , 2005 .

[9]  Yong Yin,et al.  A study on human-task-related performances in converting conveyor assembly line to cellular manufacturing , 2008 .

[10]  David A. Nembhard,et al.  Selection policies for a multifunctional workforce , 2014 .

[11]  Ikou Kaku,et al.  Seru: The Organizational Extension of JIT for a Super-Talent Factory , 2012, Int. J. Strateg. Decis. Sci..

[12]  Yong Yin,et al.  A multi-skilled worker assignment problem in seru production systems considering the worker heterogeneity , 2018, Comput. Ind. Eng..

[13]  Gürsel A. Süer,et al.  Designing parallel assembly lines , 1998 .

[14]  K. Stecke,et al.  The evolution of production systems from Industry 2.0 through Industry 4.0 , 2018, Int. J. Prod. Res..

[15]  Gürsel A. Süer,et al.  Models for cell loading and product sequencing in labor-intensive cells , 2009, Comput. Ind. Eng..

[16]  Zhe Zhang,et al.  Production System Performance Improvement by Assembly Line-seru Conversion , 2017 .

[17]  Jing Huang,et al.  Minimizing total tardiness subject to manpower restriction in labor-intensive manufacturing cells , 2013, Math. Comput. Model..

[18]  Ikou Kaku,et al.  A Fundamental Positive Investigation into Japanese Seru Production Systems , 2016 .

[19]  Gürsel A. Süer,et al.  Stochastic skill-based manpower allocation in a cellular manufacturing system , 2014 .

[20]  Ikou Kaku,et al.  A Review: Practice and Theory in Line-Cell Conversion , 2011 .

[21]  Yong Yin,et al.  Seru Seisan‐ an innovation of the production management Mode in Japan , 2010 .

[22]  Kathryn E. Stecke,et al.  An implementation framework for seru production , 2014, Int. Trans. Oper. Res..

[23]  Kuo-Ching Ying,et al.  Minimising total cost for training and assigning multiskilled workers in seru production systems , 2017, Int. J. Prod. Res..

[24]  Wei Sun,et al.  Line-hybrid seru system conversion: Models, complexities, properties, solutions and insights , 2017, Comput. Ind. Eng..

[25]  Carl T. Haas,et al.  Assignment and Allocation Optimization of Partially Multiskilled Workforce , 2002 .

[26]  Yong Yin,et al.  The Evolution of Seru Production Systems Throughout Canon , 2008 .

[27]  Yong Yin,et al.  Seru production: An extension of just-in-time approach for volatile business environments , 2014 .

[28]  Gürsel A. Süer,et al.  Multi-period operator assignment considering skills, learning and forgetting in labour-intensive cells , 2008 .

[29]  Yong Yin,et al.  Training and assignment of multi-skilled workers for implementing seru production systems , 2013 .

[30]  Ikou Kaku,et al.  A Mathematical Model for Converting Conveyor Assembly Line to Cellular Manufacturing , 2008 .

[31]  Ikou Kaku,et al.  How to carry out assembly line–cell conversion? A discussion based on factor analysis of system performance improvements , 2012 .

[32]  Wei Sun,et al.  Seru system balancing: Definition, formulation, and exact solution , 2018, Comput. Ind. Eng..

[33]  Wei Sun,et al.  Combining local search into non-dominated sorting for multi-objective line-cell conversion problem , 2013, Int. J. Comput. Integr. Manuf..

[34]  Ikou Kaku,et al.  Line-seru conversion towards reducing worker(s) without increasing makespan: models, exact and meta-heuristic solutions , 2017, Int. J. Prod. Res..