Bir otomobil montaj hattı için otomasyon seviyesi optimizasyonu

The automotive sector has been one of the industries with greatest importance throughout the history. The design of assembly lines plays a crucial role for the success of manufacturing since it affects both the manufacturing cost and productivity. Assembly lines can be manually operated, automated, or of mixed design. Automotive manufacturing is a complicated process that requires automation to some extent. Automated assembly has low labour cost but very high capital costs because of the expensive automation equipment required, while manual assembly is characterized by high labour costs and low capital costs. Automation level is calculated considering the amount of tasks performed using automation versus using labour in the workstations of the assembly line. The problem considered in this thesis is to determine the optimum level of automation for an automobile assembly line where tasks can be performed either manually or using robots. The aim is to determine the level of automation which minimizes the total cost of investment, labour and operations while meeting overall requirements. We propose a mixed integer programming model in order to determine the types of workstations to be used in the assembly line as well as task assignments to workstations. The constraints of the model are defined based on a real case regarding the assembly of a commercial vehicle in an automobile manufacturing plant in Turkey. A numerical experimentation is done to see the effects of unit labour cost and annual demand on the optimum line configuration and automation level.