International Journal of Information and Education Technology, Vol. 3, No.

6, December 2013

Analysis and Simulation Application for Manual Work

Performance Improvement
W. K. Hwam, Y. Chung, D. S. Chang, and S. C. Park

 causes delay of former workstations and idle of latter

Abstract—Presented in this paper is a framework for analysis workstations. In other words, poor performance of one
and simulation application for performance improvement of workstation affects to the entire assembly line flow, and it
manual work in a manned assembly line. In a manufacturing causes, as a result, a decline of productivity of the line.
system, productivity is a key of competitiveness for output
products, and the manual work performance is one of the
decisive factors of productivity of a manned assembly line.
However, existing approaches to the manufacturing systems are
limited to matters of the plant layout or the robot tasks design in
the automated factory and to the manual work are concentrated
on the ergonomic based workload analysis. Consequently, the Fig. 1. Manned assembly line process.
modern approach for the manual work performance
improvement has not been researched. As a solution of the
current problem, this study proposes an application that Existing research and tools for the productivity
analyzes manual work based on work design approach using improvement of manufacturing systems can be classified as
video-recording, and the system executes a brief simulation of manufacturing process design and work method design.
newly derived work standard from the analysis. Manufacturing process design is research to design and
manage a system regarding with equipment installation
Index Terms—Assembly line, manual work, simulation, work layout, capacity planning, operation process management
video analysis. and operation and resource scheduling. This research is to
select process type (i.e. job shop, batch, assembly,
continuous) based on the diversity, flexibility and yield of
I. INTRODUCTION
output products of the system and to apply the selected
Productivity of a manufacturing system is one of the process to the target manufacturing system. Construction of a
important elements that decide the enterprise competitive manufacturing system requires a lot of resources, and it also
power, such as market flexibility and quality management. needs almost equal resources to modify the constructed
Manufacturing enterprises must carry out an activity for system. Thus, this research has to be considered seriously
productivity improvement continuously. The manned before implementation of a system. Former research on this
assembly line is a process of manufacturing systems, which is matter is following: Askin and Mitwasi proposed a
suitable to massive manufacture having better flexibility than mathematical heuristic model for facility layout, process
the automated system. This process has been adopted in the selection and capacity planning of a manufacturing system
industry for electronic appliances, i.e. television and based on the previous approaches [1], such as linear
refrigerator. Because the industry has many different product programming [2], heuristic rule based process planning [3],
types and frequent changes, to design the manufacturing the Lagrangian relaxation techniques for hierarchical
system as fully automated using dedicated tools is hindered production planning [4], quadratic assignment problem
by the view of cost-effectiveness. The process is structured (QAP) and graph theory for facilities layout [5]-[7],
by three factors of machine, worker and material (see Fig. 1), procedures for assigning operations to machines [8], [9].
and the productivity is determined by machine capacity, Bazargan-Lari reported layout designs in cellular
worker performance and product design. After built up all the manufacturing for a dynamic food manufacturing and
equipment and operation plans of assembly lines, it is packaging system [10], and Deb and Bhattacharyya adopted
difficult to modify the layout or replace the equipment. fuzzy theory to plan manufacturing facilities layout [11].
Therefore, improvement of the worker performance is an Reifur suggested a proper automation degree in assembly
appropriate approach to the productivity enhancement of lines [12], and Park and Chang proposed a virtual-factory
installed lines. Although jobs on an assembly line normally based simulation for verification of productivity and agile
does not require high-skilled workers because of an stabilization of a production system [13].
aggregation of repetitive tasks, such as picking a component Work method design is to research for the effective
from toolset and assembling a component with a base laid on capacity maximization of a system and it is a key factor to
a conveyor, a slow workstation by a low-skilled worker improve productivity of a system after implementation of the
system. The research has been applied to the automated
system and manned systems. For the automated
Manuscript received May 10, 2013; revised July 10, 2013.
The authors are with the Dept. of Industrial Engineering, Ajou University,
manufacturing system, much of research was progressed
Korea (e-mail: lunacy@ajou.ac.kr, webmacom@ajou.ac.kr, about robot OLP (Off-Line Programming) for machine work
scpark@ajou.ac.kr, yongho1230@gmail.com). process planning, such as cutting, welding and casting

DOI: 10.7763/IJIET.2013.V3.347 615

 International Journal of Information and Education Technology, Vol. 3, No. 6, December 2013

[14]-[16]. For manual work in the manned manufacturing improvement in manned assembly lines of a global electronic
system, there are two streams of research: traditional work manufacturer.
design and Ergonomics. The traditional work design is a The overall structure of this paper is as follows. Section II
methodology that is based on manual work analysis to gives description of the approach of this study, and the
remove inefficiency from worker‟s movements or working implemented system based on the approach is represented in
process. This methodology analyzes work using various Section III. Finally, the summary and future study of this
charts for macro motion study; such as flow process chart and paper is addressed in Section IV.
operation process chart [17], [18]; and micro motion study;
such as man-machine chart, operation analysis chart and
SIMO chart (an abbreviation for simultaneous motion cycle II. APPRAOCH
chart) [19]. The macro motion study is a research method that Manual work of a manned assembly line is a repetitive
breaks a job down into tasks and movements and the micro work by a worker. Therefore, this paper defines the manual
motion study is a method that defines a unit movement as work as next. Manual work is made by an aggregation of
several body motions. Therefore, work design is able to cycles. A cycle that means a single operation contains several
identify inefficient elements of the wide range from a body tasks, and a task is composed of worker‟s motions. Fig. 2
action to tasks by using charts to describe work. Ergonomics depicts this decomposition of manual work to explain the
is another methodology to analyze manual work, but it structure of manual work, and an example of a task is shown
concentrates on the human factors, which are worker's in Fig. 3. In the example, a task of the worker can be
motions, therblig and postures, to measure the workload and described as „tighten a screw using a power screwdriver‟.
identifies overloaded body parts of the worker to maintain The task also can be described as three motions; „grab a
well-performance by retaining health and safety of the power screwdriver‟, „move a power screwdriver‟ and
worker. In order to analyze manual work based on „tighten a screw‟.
ergonomics, it has been used three methods; video-recording,
marker and questionnaire. The video-recording method
requires a video that captured the entire work of the workers,
and it analyzes the video itself or results of the
simulation-based virtual experiment that utilizes a virtual
work model converted from the video. The marker based
method attaches markers onto the body of the worker to track
the motion or measure the change of electromyogram or Fig. 2. Decomposition of manual work.
electrocardiogram. The marker based analysis result exactly
indicates problematic motions or postures. The questionnaire
method is a worker completes a questionnaire regarding the
experience gained during the work. This method predicts
workloads of the worker by an analysis result of the
questionnaire.
Despite much former research for productivity
improvement of manufacturing system, the research for
worker performance improvement is still stayed in the
traditional approaches that are focuses on partial efficiency Fig. 3. Example of element action and unit motions.
issues of manual work which can be described by single chart.
Although many latest technologies are adopted in ergonomic In the traditional work design, the macro motion study is
approach, it demands too much of the costs, efforts and time appropriate for analysis of work elements and operation
to apply with the whole assembly line. In the research for the cycles and the micro motion study aims to analyze unit
line balancing problem of the assembly line process, labor motions of a worker. For the improvement of manual work
productivity for line productivity improvement was performance, it is needed a method of work analysis based on
mentioned, but the research spotlighted the stabilization of the view that integrates both of the macro and micro motion
cycle-time balance of work stations using cycle-times study. But existing research approaches independently and
assumed as constant values. Thus, from the current research separately to the macro and micro motion study. Thus, this
situation for the manual work itself, there is no solution for study designs a chart template for the integration of different
improvement of overall manual work performance to meet levels of the structure of work decomposition. The designed
recent IT based technology trends. In the manned assembly template in this paper describes a work element with element
line, manual work analysis for worker performance name and type and a unit motion as motion name and type,
improvement should be the first activity to improve the line waste type, start time and time interval. By the designed
productivity, but the lack of the related research causes template, an element is represented by several unit motions
impediment for applying the research for the next activities and a single operation is explained by several work elements.
of productivity improvement into the real system. This study Fig. 4 shows a structure and details of the designed template.
proposes a framework to solve the lack in manual work This study proposes a framework for construction of a
analysis system. The implemented system based the proposed system to analyze manual work recorded in video based on
framework was applied for worker performance the template and to simulate the analysis result. The system

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based on the proposed framework imports a video file that work from analysis. Fig. 6 represents the layout of the
records manual work, and it analyzes the imported video implemented system, and each part of the layout is a function
using a chart which is based on the designed template. In the for video-playback (A), work analysis chart (B) and result
analysis mode of the system, a user specifies sections of an display using graph (C). The work analysis chart of the
imported video as unit motion, work element and operation system is structured based on the designed template in section
cycle of work elements and classifies the value adding type of 2. The work analysis chart in the system has columns to insert
motions. Sections of the video can be excluded from work information of work elements (D), information of unit
video playback for the simulation of a modified manual work motions (E), motion duration (F) and motion exclusion (G).
standard devised from the analysis. In addition, the system is The work that is analyzed by this system is repetitive, thus, a
able to obtain a standard time of a single operation cycle, and user can insert separators to distinguish cycle start and end on
it changes the belonged workstation of an element action to the chart. In conclusion, the system is able to cover the range
optimize the line balancing ratio of an assembly line by of work analysis that is between the motion and the
comparing with the standard time of other workstations. operation.
As a result of the system, a working time of the
workstation is obtained from a standard cycle time of the
analyzed work. A manned assembly line is structured by
several workstations, and the minimum process time of the
line is calculated by the sum of a cycle time of workstations.
However, a real process time of the line is larger than the sum,
because there are many chances to occur idle on workstations
by various reasons. The most possible cause of idle states is
from unbalanced cycle times of workstations, therefore, the
line balancing of a line is required. The line productivity is
able to be simulated by the discrete simulation system using
Fig. 4. Designed template structure and detail. the revised cycle times of workstations (see Fig. 7).

III. FRAMEWORK AND IMPLEMENTATION

The system proposed in this study is a software tool to help
users to analyze a video which was recording manual work of
workers and to derive improvements based on the analysis of
existing work. The system requires a work video as a
resource, and it plays a video file on a screen. A user defines
sections of the video, and each section is input an analysis
from a user. The system provides a chart for allowing a user Fig. 6. Implemented system.
to input analysis data and stores the data in the database. The
analysis result is displayed using graphs, such as a Gantt
chart and bar chart, to represent the current state of a work
process. A user is able to revise the existing work process
based on the analysis result, and the revised work process
allows to be simulated in the system by exclusion of deleted
elements from the analysis result. The revised work process
is exported as a new standard work process of the field and as
a work station performance for line balancing of a line. This
framework of the proposed system is depicted in Fig. 5.

Fig. 7. Line balancing simulation by discrete simulation system.

IV. SUMMARY AND FUTURE STUDY

This paper is research for the manual work improvement
of a workstation in a manned assembly line. For the
improvement, this paper proposes the work measurement
method using a chart that is designed in Section II. Manual
Fig. 5. Framework of proposed system.
work is able to be analyzed on the view of both macro and
According to the framework, the system requires to have micro motion study by the designed chart. The system
functions of video-playback, user-writeable work analysis proposed in this paper is developed to help a user to analyze
chart, graph display of results and excepting user-selected manual work using video playback. A user of the system is

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able to analyze work videos and write the analysis result onto [12] B. Reifur, “Optimum assembly automation level selection module as
the component of advisory system,” Archives of Civil and Mechanical
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In the future study, the system is improved for better Production System,” International Journal of Production Research,
vol. 50, no. 8, pp. 2321-2330, 2012.
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[14] S. C. Park and B. K. Choi, “Boundary extraction algorithm for cutting
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[17] F. B. Gilbreth, Motion Study: A Method for Increasing the Efficiency of
the Workman, New York: Van Nostrand, 1911.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT [18] F. B. Gilbreth and L. M. Gilbreth, Process Charts, New York: The
This work (Grants No. C00035790100384919) was American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1921.
[19] A. Freivalds and B. W. Niebel, Niebel's Methods, Standards, and Work
supported by Business for Cooperative R&D between Design: Twelfth Edition, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009.
Industry, Academy, and Research Institute funded Korea
Small and Medium Business Administration in 2013. This Won K. Hwam received a bachelor degree (2011) in
work is also supported by the Defense Acquisition Program industrial and information system engineering and a
master degree (2013) in industrial engineering, Ajou
Administration (DAPA), the Agency for Defense University, Korea. He is now a Ph. D candidate in
Development (ADD) under the Contract No. UD110006MD industrial engineering, Ajou University, Korea, and he is
(DAPA), UD100009DD and UD120035JD (ADD). The a member of modeling and simulation laboratory, which
is an affiliation of department of industrial engineering,
authors wish to express sincere gratitude for the financial Ajou University. He is interested in distributed simulation
support. system, synthetic environment, and manufacturing simulation system.

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