A quantitative metric for workstation design for aircraft assembly

Abstract

This paper is to study an activity-time-based metric, called Non-Value-Added- Ratio (NVAR) which is the ratio between the time consumed by all non-value added activities and the total assembly time, for measuring the goodness of workstation design. With this metric, the manager will have a good sense of shopfloor operation, and the planner will have a target for designing workstations. This metric is specific to an assembly procedure in a workstation. To implement the metric, the shop floor activities are classified into three types, i.e., non-value-added (NVA), value-added (VA) and non-value-added- butnecessary (NVAN) activities. A closed-loop systematic approach is introduced for applying the new metric for continuous productivity improvement. Preliminary results with an industrial case study are presented. Although this metric is currently focusing on the aerospace industry, it can be equally well applied to other industry sectors. © 2008 Springer-Verlag London Limited.