EFFECT OF PART TRANSFER POLICIES IN TWO TYPES OF LAYOUTS IN AUTOMOTIVE BODY SHOPS

摘要

A body shop in an automotive factory consists of many sub-lines which are highly automated transfer lines, and the sub-lines are merged in many assembly operations. To design a body shop, the layout concepts based on welding technologies and the material handling systems should be considered and optimized. Two types of layout concepts are widely used, and they are known as the layered build layout and the modular build layout. There are also two part transfer policies in a transfer line with unreliable machines and no buffer. The first transfer policy is the asynchronous transfer which allows a part to move to the next operation independently. The second policy is the synchronous transfer which allows parts to move to the next operation whenever all operations in a sub-line are completed. In this study, we compare two types of transfer policies in two different layouts having many transfer lines and assembly operations in automotive body shops by simulation study.