Automobile Factory Research Articles

Forms of Cultural Mass Events at Gorky Car Factory in 1930th

The Gorky Car Factory Library successfully solved the problem of liquidation of illiteracy and semiliteracy among workers, it helped in their studies, in popularization of knowledge and books and it organized the meetings with writers and cultural leisure of the factory workers. There were special talks and loud readings and large-type editions were printed. Large scale work with the members of Stakhanovism was held. A great number of events organized by the library go to prove its important educational role.

Sequencing Mixed Model Assembly Lines Based on Genetic Algorithm Optimization

Firstly, genetic algorithm optimization method was put forward to solve optimization problems of sequencing in actual mixed model passenger car factory assembly line. Then genetic algorithm optimization methods and procedures of mixed model total assembly line production sequencing were studied. Finally, according to the characteristics of the mixed production line, the least total waiting time of vehicle was set to complete assembly as a sequencing optimization objective, the AutoMod simulation software was used to balance the allocation of resources and optimize the sequence by way of genetic algorithm, and the optimal sequencing solution was obtained. After optimization and balance, the total waiting time of mixed model vehicles in complete assembly line was reduced by 69.5%, which improves production efficiency greatly. This also proves the effectiveness of genetic algorithm optimization.

Efficient and Effective Use of Energy: a Case Study of TOFAS

In this study technical and economical analysis of energy efficiency application to high efficient motors has been done. For this purpose, first of all, the motors with known power and working time which are used by Tofas Turkish Automobile Factory, the largest car manufacturer in Turkey, have been examined. Research of the high efficient motors that will replace the chosen engines has been done and financial statement on their use has been analyzed. In the first step, 158 selected motors have been examined. It has been determined that high efficient motors of a new generation will amortize themselves in 30 months. 14 motors have been eliminated from this replacement procedure because amortization period would be too long to them. Under these circumferences, amortization period will decrease to 16 months for the rest of new motors.

A field assessment on the risk factors of musculoskeletal disorders

To investigate the usability of quick exposure check (Quick Exposure Check, QEC) for the field assessment of occupational musculoskeletal disorder risk factors. In the shipyard and automobile manufacturing plants, QEC was used to observe the operations among workers with different jobs and to assess the work loads of workers. On the basis of results, the reliability of QEC was evaluated, and the correlation between QEC scores and morbidities of musculoskeletal disorders in workers was analyzed. The inter-observer reliability (ICC) was in the range from 0.737 to 1.000, and intra-observer reliability (Spearman coefficient) was from 0.605 to 1.000. The order of exposure levels to risk factors of workers engaged in different jobs (QEC scores) in the shipyard factory was plumbers > assemblers > welders; The order of exposure levels to risk factors of workers engaged in different jobs (QEC scores) in the automobile factory was welders > punching workers > machinists > casters > assemblers. In different body parts, the exposure level at back and neck parts was the highest and the exposure level at the shoulder and wrist parts was the second. The regression analysis between QEC scores of body parts and the morbidities of musculoskeletal disorders showed that there was a good correlation between exposure levels and morbidities, the coefficients (r(2)) at the shoulder, wrist, and back (static work) were 0.670, 0.740 and 0.958, respectively (P < 0.05). The QEC method is suitable and reliable as demonstrated by the field assessment on the exposure to risk factors in shipyard and automobile workers, and its results is correlated closely to the disease prevalence.

University of the Pacific/Highland Hospital Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Training Program

The Roaring Twenties was a time of great economic and technologic expansion in the United States, particularly in California. Oakland, California, was the site of many manufacturing industries, including shipbuilding, aircraft, and automotive. Once known as the “Detroit of the West,” Oakland was host to 3 major automobile factories churning out sedans, coupes, convertibles, and roadsters.1,2

“They all sort of disappeared”: The Early Cohort of UAW Women Leaders

MICHIGAN HISTORICAL REVIEW 37:1 (Spring 2011): 5-39©2011 by Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved. 2010 Student Essay Prize Winner “They all sort of disappeared”: The Early Cohort of UAW Women Leaders by Amy Bromsen For a brief period during World War II, women were allowed to join the predominantly male workforce in the automobile factories. Although women had already been instrumental in organizing largely female plants into the United Automobile Workers-Congress of Industrial Organizations (UAW-CIO), the war created new space and opportunities for members of a cohort of women to be elected leaders of UAW locals. As veterans returned after the war, however, there was enormous pressure to push women out of their union positions and, indeed, out of the workforce entirely. Some of the women previously elected to shop-floor bargaining and grievance-handling positions withstood the flood of returning servicemen and the postwar recession layoffs. They remained local union leaders even after the composition of the workforce in the automobile factories again became predominantly male. A small group of these women received appointments to positions with the International Union between 1944 and 1952, where even those staunchly aligned with Walter Reuther faced discrimination and were denied positions they merited and probably would have received had they been men. These women were assigned to administer programs and work in departments that did not perform contract bargaining and representational functions, despite the fact that they had developed skills in those areas while holding elected positions in their local unions. Several factors account for the failure of the UAW to recognize and develop these women‘s leadership abilities: the beliefs and behaviors of union men; caucus loyalty; the personal relationships that played an important, albeit veiled, role at the higher levels of union administration; A previous version of this article was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Social Science History Association in 2010. The author would like to thank Professor Elizabeth Faue, Wayne State University Department of History, for her helpful comments as a discussant on the panel following the paper‘s presentation and for her advice throughout the preparation of this article. 6 Michigan Historical Review and union structures that created and reinforced barriers to women‘s leadership. These historical and institutional obstacles denied promotions in the International Union to women with representational and bargaining experience (the early cohort) while increasingly offering advancement (in administrative offices divorced from bargaining) to a later cohort of women with administrative rather than bargaining experience in their local unions. Although the early cohort‘s assignments at the UAW International were administrative in nature, this group of women had had powerful negotiating and contract-enforcement positions in their respective local unions. The later group, women appointed to the UAW International from the mid-1950s to the end of the twentieth century, form a different cohort with different backgrounds and different expectations. For the most part, these women had held elected or appointed administrative positions within their local unions, had not experienced the greater power exercised by the first cohort, and would not expect their assignments at the International level to vary greatly from their local union jobs. This difference in roles is an important distinction, because unions typically have had two separate ―branches‖ of government, with different sets of rules, institutional goals, and levels of power. Historically, the branch that controls the labor-management relationship through negotiation and enforcement of the collectivebargaining agreement has had more power in the UAW than the branch that administers the union‘s structures, programs, and funds.1 It is this bifurcated arrangement that permitted the union to appoint women to UAW International positions and yet still prevent them from holding powerful negotiation and representational assignments. Women could have careers and be successful in the UAW, but they have remained largely excluded from positions with the power to make important decisions. In order for a system designed to subordinate women to be stable, it must create structures that reinforce that subordination and maintain it over time. In addition, such a system must develop an ideology to reinforce the concept that men‘s interests represent the interests of the group as a...

3257 Environmentally Conscious Deep Hole Drilling using Oil Mist Carried by Mixed Gas

The productivity of deep hole drilling is greatly improved in recent years, where the long twist drill with the high pressure coolant supply has been used. The problems of this system are revealed such as the excess consumption of electric power, and the dispose of the large quantities of waste coolant. To solve these problems, MQL drilling becomes practical and now widely used in many Japanese automobile factories. In this research, the process improvement technology for MQL drilling is proposed. Excellent tool life was achieved by using mixed gases as the mist carrier instead of the conventional compressed air. The results of drilling experiment shows the increasing drill-life and the increasing thrust force during drilling. The cutting force and chip thickness analysis suggest the novel tribological conditions derive from atmosphere.

Des gifles au vinaigre by Tony Cartano

walking in solidarity in the annual march before the Tishri festival and recalls biblical verses of the coming of the Messiah. Le troisième jour is an intriguing story rendered in a poetic prose in which Arabic and Hebrew mix with the French narration to bring present day Jerusalem to life. Music and language shape the form and content of the novel. Rachel’s concert features the music Dvorak wrote during his foreign travels, a metaphor for the characters’ existences. The Hebrew vav, which fascinated Rachel’s father, when placed before some verbs in the Bible, alters the verb tense from future to past and from past to future. Likewise, Boukhobza suggests that the past, however painful, does not disappear, but rather forms the future: “Le bonheur n’efface pas le désespoir. Il s’écrit dessus. Il s’écrit avec les histoires du passé” (199). Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania Nathalie G. Cornelius CARTANO, TONY. Des gifles au vinaigre. Paris: Albin Michel, 2010. ISBN 978-2-22621528 -4. Pp. 267. 19 a. Tony Cartano’s title translates a Spanish exclamation that his father, “A.,” used when he encountered adversity: “Hostias en vinagre!” The formula, uttered “avec des intonations très diverses” (93), was a lively defiance of fate, whether it was defeat at the hands of Franco during the Spanish Civil War, 1936–39, when A. was an anarcho-syndicalist fighting for the Republic; or the moment when French authorities separated him from his comrade, Eusebio Torres, in the refugee camp in southern France; or his confrontation with death in 1973. The “phrase sybilline” (93) is a verbal legacy for the narrating son, Antonio. Although Cartano labels Des gifles au vinaigre a “roman,” it has a large autobiographical component, alternating between the father’s legend and the narrator’s self-portrait. Imagination is the best means of finding his father’s truth: “Faire d’un père l’objet d’une fiction n’est pas sacrilège, surtout si l’on considère qu’il fut un être d’illusion, entièrement façonné par l’utopie” (116), the utopia being the experiment of the Spanish Popular Front. The narrator divines his father’s past, over and above the few reliable anecdotes and documents that punctuate the plot. In 1936, A. was a machinist in the Hispano-Suiza automobile factory in Barcelona. He earned spare change as a dancer at the club Las Estrellas Muertas where he encountered Andrea, a taxi-dancer whom he married and with whom he had a child, Carmen. When A. goes into combat, Andrea abandons him for a Falangist nobleman, though circumstances bring A. and Andrea back together on the Republican side in 1937, only to separate them definitively once A. returns to the front. A. goes into exile at the fall of the Spanish Republic, when French border authorities change the original “Cartañá” into “Cartano” (65). His new life in France begins first in the internment camp at Gurs (from which he escapes in 1940), then as a worker at the Breguet aviation works, and finally, after the war, helping his new soulmate, the narrator’s mother, Sixta Hernandez, run a business in Bayonne. The two parts of the story, “La Guerre” and “L’Exil,” interact with curious twists. Antonio was conscripted for French military service in 1969, in retaliation for leftist activities during May 1968. Hoping to deport him, authorities raised his father’s status as refugee and foreigner. The narrator was instead medically discharged because of an accident during his otherwise happy childhood at Bayonne, when he lost sight in one eye while playing with a toy dart gun. The 392 FRENCH REVIEW 85.2 father wanted to return to Barcelona to get treatment for his son, but was not able to do so in 1948, because of his Republican past. “Pourquoi et comment le fils d’un réfugié de la guerre d’Espagne va soudain, et à son corps défendant, être soumis à l’héritage, à l’ombre pesante du Père...?” (241), asks the narrator, but in fact A. represented the pleasant lightness of being, once he survived the tragic years, 1936–44. Cartano draws portraits of the frenetic first...

Increased illuminance at the workplace: Does it have advantages for daytime shifts?

An increased illuminance at the workplace is often said to be linked to an increase in productivity. We investigated this relationship in 23 workers on a production line in a car factory. Measurements of visual performance (visual acuity, colour vision and contrast sensitivity), a physiological assessment of alertness and subjective assessments of four parameters of well-being were made during the daytime shift under three illuminances (500 lux, 1500 lux and 2500 lux). The physiological alertness results and all but one of the subjective parameters showed no significant differences between the three illuminance conditions. Subjective alertness was the only parameter that was rated to be significantly greater at 2500 lux than at 500 lux. The utilisation of higher illuminances in the workplace should be carefully considered before being implemented.

Hazardous Organic Compounds in Groundwater Near Tehran Automobile Industry

Potential of groundwater contamination by trichloroethylene (TCE) and other volatile organic compounds VOCs near car industry was conducted in this study. TCE, PCE, toluene, xylene, dichloromethane, cyclohexane, n-hexane and n-pentane were detected in all groundwaters. Mean TCE levels in groundwater ranged from 124.37 to 1,035.9 μg L⁻¹ with maximum level of 1,345.7 μg L⁻¹. Due to the data obtained from conventional wastewater treatment in car factory the TCE removal efficiency was only 24 percent which necessitates the TCE removal by advanced treatment processes before the use of well water.

Building better Bentleys

Bentley has always been a carmaker with an iconic brand. It set numerous speed and endurance records in the 1920s, with its famous 3-litre, 85bhp engine providing speeds of 80mph and more. It successfully competed at Indianapolis, the Isle of Man and Brooklands and became inextricably linked with the history of the famous 24-hour race at Le Mans.The paper mentions that mixing hand-built and cutting-edge technology in a luxury car factory is no mean feat. (5 pages)

Diversity in the lean automobile factory: doing class through gender, disability and age

This study advances a critical re-conceptualization of ‘diversity’ through class. Drawing on the case of CarCo, the Belgian branch of a North American automobile company, I show how the discursive constructions of various socio-demographic identities reflect underlying class relations between labour and capital and are, in turn, implicated in their reproduction. Reflecting the instrumental conceptualization of labour as the source of economic value in the capitalist mode of production, female, older and disabled workers were discursively constructed as unable or unwilling to perform as expected within the factory lean production system. These negative identities in turn legitimized the elimination of ‘different’ workers in the company restructuring and the outsourcing of the phases of the production process that could be carried out by them, materially reproducing class relations. The analysis unveils the ‘dark’ business case against diversity at CarCo, a company which was renowned as a ‘best’ case for diversity in Belgium. I argue that the re-conceptualization of diversity through class offers a powerful analytical tool to better understand how unequal power relations are played out in contemporary organizations.

A combined methodology for supplier selection and performance evaluation

Today, organizations that wish to carry on the sustainable growing need a robust strategic performance measurement and evaluation system because of changing demands of consumers, reduced product life cycle, competitive and globalised markets. In this study, a new methodology is introduced and proposed for increasing the supplier selection and evaluation quality. The new approach considers both qualitative and quantitative variables in evaluating performance for selection of suppliers based on efficiency and effectiveness in one of the biggest car manufacturing factory in Turkey. This new methodology is realized in two steps. In the first stage, qualitative performance evaluation is performed by using fuzzy AHP (Analytical Hierarchical Process) in finding criteria weights and then fuzzy TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) is utilized in finding the ranking of suppliers. So, qualitative variables are transformed into a quantitative variable for using in DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) methodology as an output called quality management system audit. In the second stage, DEA is performed with one dummy input and four output variables, namely, quality management system audit, warranty cost ratio, defect ratio, quality management. As a result, comparing with the present system applied by the car factory, the new method seems to be some advantages and superiorities for making the decision in buying the quality car luggage side part (panel) by selecting the suitable supplier(s) in an automotive factory of Turkey.

Effects of aging and job demands on cognitive flexibility assessed by task switching

In a cross-sectional, electrophysiological study 91 workers of a big car factory performed a series of switch tasks to assess their cognitive control functions. Four groups of workers participated in the study: 23 young and 23 middle aged assembly line employees and 22 young and 23 middle aged employees with flexible job demands like service and maintenance. Participants performed three digit categorisation tasks. In addition to single task blocks, a cue-based (externally guided) and a memory-based (internally guided) task switch block was administered. Compared to young participants, older ones showed the typical RT-decline. No differences between younger and older participants regarding the local switch costs could be detected despite the source of the current task information. In contrast, whereas the groups did not differ in mixing costs in the cued condition, clear performance decrements in the memory-based mixing block were observed in the group of older employees with repetitive work demands. These findings were corroborated by a number of electrophysiological results showing a reduced CNV suggesting an impairment of task specific preparation, an attenuated P3b suggesting reduced working memory capacity and a decreased Ne suggesting deficits in error monitoring in older participants with repetitive job demands. The results are compatible with the assumption that long lasting, unchallenging job demands may induce several neurocognitive impairments which are already evident in the early fifties. Longitudinal studies are needed to confirm this assumption.

Conflict and repression in an Argentinean car factory: a cycle of resistance from a worker’s perspective

This article presents a worker’s account of two factory occupations in Argentina. This reconstruction, rather than focusing on the role of specific agents, allows an unveiling of the dynamics through which the clash between the employer’s drive for profitability and workers’ interests in defence of their salaries developed. A cycle of conflict, resistance, repression and finally workers’ subordination and acceptance of flexible employment conditions can be identified. Despite the tendency of the capitalist mode of production to produce divisions among workers in the workplace and society, the article highlights the importance of direct action, solidarity and democratic organising as workers’ tools to react to and transform the system.

Crisis Intervention for Workers in Severely Stressful Situations After Massive Layoffs and Labor Disputes

Due to the economic crisis and globalization, many workers have been suffering from severe occupational stress due to job insecurity and struggles related to downsizing and restructuring. This study aims to assess the stress levels among workers involved in fierce labor disputes and massive layoffs and to evaluate their specific needs and satisfaction with counseling services set up to help workers cope with severely stressful situations? The authors provided crisis intervention to workers in traumatic situations to compare the differential level of stress responses and needs among the workers remaining employed in a large auto factory, those laid off by it, and those laid off by other companies in the same region (Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province). We measured stress levels using the worker's stress response inventory (WSRI) and heart rate variability (HRV), and assessed workers' satisfaction with the counseling services. 502 workers participated in the program. Fifty-seven percent of them consulted with occupational problems. The mean WSRI score of the workers remaining employed in the automobile factory was higher than that of the unemployed (employed: 39.8+/-19.9, unemployed: 29.3+/-18.8). Ninety-five percent of workers responded that they were satisfied or very satisfied with the counseling services. This study suggests the urgent need for the establishment of a national crisis intervention program dedicated to supporting workers in severely stressful situations.

The influence of brake pads thermal conductivity on passenger car brake system efficiency

In phase of vehicle braking system designing, besides of mechanical characteristics, it is also necessary to take under consideration the system?s thermal features. This is because it is not enough just to achieve proper braking power, for the brake system to be effective but equally important thing is the dissipation of heat to the environment. Heat developed in the friction surfaces dissipate into the environment over the disk in one hand and through the brake linings and caliper, in the other. The striving is to make that greatest amount of heat to dissipate not threw the brake pads but threw disc. The experimental researching of heat transfer process taking place at vehicle brakes was made in the R&amp;D Center of ?Zastava automobili? car factory in order to increase the efficiency of brake system. The standard laboratory and road test procedures were used, according to factory quality regulations. The modern equipment such as thermo camera, thermo couples, torque transducers, signal amplifiers, optical speed measuring system and laptop computer were used. In this paper will be shown the part of the experimental researching, which refers to the thermal conductivity of brake pad friction linings.

Alternative Representations of Statistical Measures in Computer Tools to Promote Communication between Employees in Automotive Manufacturing

In manufacturing industry, many employees need to interpret and communicate statistical information to monitor and improve production processes. Often the information is reduced to the form of numerical measures, on the logic that numbers are a convenient and understandable type of information to pass among the diverse groups of employees that make up a manufacturing operation. We investigated by means of interviews and observation how several numerical measures, ‘process capability indices’, were used in an automotive factory and how employees were trained to use them. We found that the typical introduction to the measures deployed statistical and algebraic symbolism as well as laborious manual calculations that did not appear to support employees’ understanding of the underlying mathematical relationships. These measures therefore failed to be ‘boundary objects’ – artifacts that inhabit different social worlds and satisfy the informational requirements of each. The goal of our subsequent design-based research was to design a representation of the process capability indices that would be easier to engage with than the existing formal symbolism used in shop floor calculations and in training. We did this by re-presenting relevant mathematical relationships in computer tools – technology-enhanced boundary objects (TEBOs) – developed in collaboration with company trainers. To evaluate our interaction with three trainers and 37 trainees in three courses in two factories, and the impact of the computer tools on practice, we followed the computer tools’ trajectory from the stage of co-design with the original car factory through to the stage at which the computer tools were used by factories beyond this research project. The evaluation points to the importance of aligning statistical and workplace norms and meanings, and gives illustrations of how the tools facilitated communication between employees.

Kinesthetic Assistance for Improving Task Performance -The Case of Window Installation Assist-

Industrial robots have been widely used in factory automation. On the other hand, in the final assembly in automobile factories, many tasks are still completed by humans due to the difficulties and costs associated with automation. One example still requiring skilled human operators is the installation of the automobile window. The window installation assist robot we developed enables a single operator to install a window easily. The present study focuses on kinesthetic assistance including preliminary experiments and application to automobile window installation during car assembly demonstrating the effectiveness of our proposal.

Southern Rockers

Southern Rockers Joshua Guthman (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution It is impossible to overlook the shame of the Stars and Bars, but what about the sound of the music itself? There lies glory. Lynyrd Skynyrd in concert, New Brockton, Alabama, 2008, courtesy of Jayuzi, under the Creative Commons Share-Alike License. [End Page 141] Let’s be honest: Southern rock is a critically despised genre, a redneck sound draped in the Confederate flag and fueled by an oh-so-’70s mix of Jack Daniels and Quaaludes. But the genre’s critics have it only partly right. It is impossible to overlook the shame of the Stars and Bars, but what about the sound of the music itself? There lies glory—especially if you turn it up real loud. 10. The Allman Brothers Band The genre’s progenitors? I wouldn’t be so quick to place the Allmans at the moment of creation. But it is true they exhibit all that is good and bad about southern rock—the heady mix of blues, rock, country, and soul, on the one hand, and the never-ending on-stage “jam” burdening that other hand like so much deadweight. 9. Lynyrd Skynyrd Only Elvis’s music lies buried beneath more heaps of cultural symbolism. But that’s what you get for playing in front of the Rebel flag and sparring with Neil Young over the meaning of southern manhood. 8. Lucinda Williams Oh, she can sing it sweet, but, Lord, have you heard Williams when she plugs in? A voice like a branding iron. 7. Uncle Tupelo The Rust Belt meets the Bible Belt. The post-industrial descendants of the white southern migrants who found themselves exiled to the steel mills and automobile factories of the Midwest. 6. Gram Parsons The pre-eminent country-rocker, a radiant songwriter, and a man who died far too young. Did you know that his corpse was stolen and set alight in the deserts of California before it could be flown back to New Orleans for burial? Talk about southern gothic. 5. The Sir Douglas Quintet They hailed from Texas and summoned the sounds of Mexico. But, please, don’t call ’em Tex-Mex. Makes their music sound like a bowl of bad chili when in fact they were serving up the sweetest stew of borderland soul imaginable. 4. Drive-By Truckers Latter-day chroniclers of what they call “the duality of the southern thing.” [End Page 142] Click for larger view View full resolution She can sing it sweet, but, Lord, have you heard her when she plugs in? A voice like a branding iron. Lucinda Williams, at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, England, 2008, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons Share-Alike License. 3. The Band “They’re from Canada!” you scream. “The South ’tis but a state of mind,” I reply. 2. Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (a.k.a. The Swampers) Unseen but always heard. The house band at fame Studios before opening up their own shop in 1969, these guys laid down the beats behind (take a deep breath) Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Etta James, Bob Seger, Willie Nelson, the Staple Singers, Traffic, the Oak Ridge Boys, Paul Simon, and Rod Stewart, among others. 1. Elvis Presley The original southern rocker. The great white whale of American culture, in Greil Marcus’s words: a musician, an idea, a force, a living metaphor of the sins and virtues of the South. [End Page 143] Joshua Guthman Joshua Guthman is the music editor of Southern Cultures and an assistant professor of history at Berea College, where he teaches American cultural and religious history. He is writing a book about Primitive Baptists and the evangelical self in antebellum America. Copyright © 2009 Center for the Study of the American South