ABSTRACT
Assembly work has a very long history. Ancient people already knew how to create a useful object composed of multiple parts. However, the objective of modern assembly processes is to produce high quality and low cost products. A number of important ideas have been developed to facilitate assembly work. Since an assembly is composed of multiple parts and parts are assembled by multiple operations, material flow becomes relatively complex. Due to lack of deterministic regularity, line problems can be very complex. Problem complexity may also come from the organization of the design team. Poor communications between design groups responsible for different functions will cause schedule delay, poor design, and high cost. Management of line information can be vital to the success of a modern manufacturing business. To assure that a line is appropriately designed, line measurements should be established to understand design effectiveness.
