Abstract
Problem statement: The objective of this study was to determine the dominance effects of environmental factors such as Illuminance (lux), relative humidity (%) and WBGT (°C) on the operators’ productivity at Malaysian automotive industry. Approach: One automotive parts assembly factory had been chosen as a subject for the study. The subjects were workers at the assembly section of the factory. The environment examined was the Illuminance (lux), relative humidity (%) and WBGT (°C) of the surrounding workstation area. Two sets of representative data including the Illuminance, relative humidity (%) and WBGT (°C) level and production rate were collected during the study. All the data was measured using Babuc apparatus which is capable to measure simultaneously those mentioned environmental factors. The time series data of fluctuating level of environmental were plotted to identify the significant changes of factors. Then Taguchi Method was being utilized to find the sequence of dominance factors that contributed to the productivity of operator at the specified production workstation. From there, optimum level for the three factors will be determine for optimum productivity. Further multiple linear regressions were employed to obtain the equation model in order to represent the relationship of these environmental factors towards productivity. Results: the thermal comfort assessments of this station which was the scale PMV was 2 and PPD is 79% ware likely to be satisfied by the worker. Conclusion: The study revealed that the dominant factor contribute to the productivity at the body assembly production line is WBGT and Illuminance whereas the empirical finding was closely related to the perception study by survey questionnaire distribution.
Highlights
Robust design is an engineering methodology for obtaining product and process conditions, which are minimally sensitive to the various causes of variation to produce high-quality products with low development and manufacturing costs[31]
Two major tools used in robust design are[22,27,31]:
This study is done to prove empirically the previous perception studies based on the role of environmental factors to productivity
Summary
Robust design is an engineering methodology for obtaining product and process conditions, which are minimally sensitive to the various causes of variation to produce high-quality products with low development and manufacturing costs[31]. Taguchi’s parameter design is an important tool for robust design It offers a simple and systematic approach to optimize design for performance, quality and cost. Taguchi’s approach is totally based on statistical design of experiments[31]. By applying this technique one can significantly reduce the time required for experimental investigation, as it is effective in investigating the effects of multiple factors on performance as well as to study the influence of individual factors to determine which factor has more influence, which less[31]. Some of the previous researches that used the Taguchi method as tool for design of experiment in various areas including metal cutting are listed in the references[3,4,14,17,25,34,36]
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