Automating the process of method-time-measurement
International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management
ISSN: 1741-0401
Article publication date: 14 December 2020
Issue publication date: 29 March 2021
Abstract
Purpose
This work reports on a developing method time measurement system for measuring manufacturing and assembly processes automatically. This automatic system enables the production engineers and management to detect, process, and display concise and accurate information about the operations in real time.
Design/methodology/approach
This system is based on Internet of things technology and RFID-antenna. This methodology consists of seven main steps and one final optimization step. Mainly, the operator is equipped by RFID reader, and the work station tools and devices are provided by RFID tags. Responding the RFID tags to the reader will refer to the certain operations, the difference time between start and end of the operations will be collected immediately and calculated by the microprocessor of the system.
Findings
This automatic system is promising, considering the accurate time measurements and recommendations that obtained from the case study which includes measuring manual assembly operations to be followed in order to overcome the limitations which are not only technical but also managerial, legal and organizational.
Research limitations/implications
The acquired data about timing and duration of individual operations are anonymized to guarantee the compliance with respect to the privacy laws (GDPR and Italian work's laws).
Originality/value
This work presents a unique system to measure the time instead of traditional methods in the factories environment and satisfies the requirements to study the recommendations in order to overcome the challenges.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the project Sprint 4.0 [N. KA-2017-1-IT02-KA203–036960]. The authors also would like to acknowledge and thank Giovanni Pianigiani for his valuable participation in the case study. Particular thanks go to Antonio Pitasi and the Zerynth team for the hardware implementation and the firmware they wrote.
Citation
Fantoni, G., Al-Zubaidi, S.Q., Coli, E. and Mazzei, D. (2021), "Automating the process of method-time-measurement", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 70 No. 4, pp. 958-982. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPPM-08-2019-0404
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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