The most frequent and expensive cause category of compensable loss is manual material handling (MMH). Casting workers who handle oxygen (O2) cylinders manually are at risk for work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). The aim of this study was to assess manual handling of O2 cylinders by casting workers and to implement ergonomic intervention to reduce the risk of musculoskeletal disorder...

Common manipulator-assisted materials handling tasks were performed in a laboratory simulation at self-selected and faster (paced) speeds. The effects of pacing on peak hand forces, torso kinematics, spine moments and forces, and muscle antagonism were determined, along with any influences of several task variables on these effects. The faster trials were performed 20% more rapidly than the sel...

Material handling is a loose loop in most assembly plants. Jiist-in-time (JIT) is a management philosophy that strives to eliminate sources of manufacturing waste by producing the right part in the right place at the right time. We propose to apply JIT principles to material handling in assembly plants. Material Kanbans are introduced as an effective means to control and balance the physical ma...

As competitive pressures increase within the manufacturing sectors of economies worldwide, and especially within the automotive sub-sector, the importance of achieving operational efficiencies to reduce costs and thence to increase profits while keeping and attracting customers steadily increases. Simulation, time studies, and value stream mapping have long been key allies of the industrial eng...

The vacuum cup grippers operate using Bernoulli Principle for generating high-speed flow between the vacuum cup and product surface thereby creating vacuum which lifted the product. Feasibility observations are studied to demonstrate and obtain an overall understanding on the capability and limitations of the vacuum cup gripper. Most of the robot grippers are not easily applicable due to the fo...

In real-word manufacturing environments, finding the right job sequences and their associated schedules when resource, precedence, and timing constraints are imposed is a difficult task. For most practical problems classical scheduling easily leads to an exponential growth in the number of possible schedules. Moreover, a decision time period of hours or even minutes is too long. Good solutions ...

This paper attempts to find out the best available alternative material handling system (MHS), an integral component of warehouse operations. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a flexible decision making tool for complex, multi-criteria problems and useful to provide management weightage, has been used in this study to develop performance model. The proposed algorithm, used to select the proper ...