Analysis of the Effect of the Line‐Seru Conversion on the Waiting Time with Batch Arrival

Abstract

The conveyor assembly line has been widely used in manufacturing industries to produce standard products with low costs. However, due to lack of flexibility, this production method has not been conducive to multivariety and small‐batch production. In this situation, seru production formed by converting conveyor assembly lines has been a successful innovation in the Japanese manufacturing industry. Most of the existing literature has studied the benefits of this line‐seru conversion from the perspective of the enterprises themselves, but this paper studies the effect of the line‐seru conversion on the waiting time from the perspective of the customer. First, the change in the average waiting queue length caused by the line‐seru conversion is proposed as an evaluation index. Second, with the consideration of the practical situation of random batch arrivals, the average waiting queue length formulas for the conveyor assembly line and seru production are established based on the assumption that the arrival is a Poisson process. Then, under two scenarios, we investigate the relationship between the average waiting queue length changed by the line‐seru conversion and other parameters and find that the conversion can reduce the average waiting queue length in multivariety and small‐batch production. Finally, under other potential scenarios, the equations for determining the average waiting queue length resulting from a change to line‐seru conversion are derived.

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