02920nam a2200241   450000500170000000800410001703500150005810000280007324500530010126000520015430000100020649000230021650001620023950200580040152018940045965000280235370000350238170000490241670000420246571000510250781000550255885600650261320260818145540.0160398         th                  eng    a.b100328970 aSomchai Kunakornporamat12aA line balancing design for a wheel-loader plant  aBangkok :bAsian Institute of Technology,c1976  a67 p.1 aThesis ;vno. 1114  aA thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering of the Asian Institute of Technology Bangkok, Thailand.  aThesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1976  aThe main purpose of this study is to redesign a production line for a wheel-loader assembly plant. The plant concerned manufactures wheel-loaders  whose design has been modified specifically to handle agricultural products, particularly tapioca and rice, which make up a large proportion of Thailand's  export trade. This modified wheel-loader is extensively used throughout the Northeastern part of the country. The existing 11-work-station production  line is a feasible one, in which many in-process inventories are found at some points along the production line, while non can be found at other points. The steps of the study are: (i) investigating the existing process in the  wheel-loader assembly plant; (ii) breaking down the process into a set of work elements, each of which is associated with work element time and precedence requirements; (iii) applying a selected line balancing technique called "Optimum-Seeking Backtracking Technique" to· this line balancing problem and (iv) discussing the results obtained from Step (iii), and then drawing conclusions from the study. To redesign a production line, the work  elements are grouped and assigned to a sequence of work stations, with the objective of minimizing the cycle time, subject to the precedence requirements and the total number of work stations not exceeding a specified line  length. Eleven production lines whose lengths vary. from 5 to 15 work stations are obtained from the study. A comparison between the existing 11 work-station production line and the proposed 11-work-station production line shows that, by replacing the former with the latter, approximately 40%  of labor costs per wheel-loader can be saved, and the cycle time can also be reduced from 25 down to 15 hours. A computer program written for this study is used in Step (iii). It can also be applied in solving similar line  balancing problems. 0aAssembly-line balancing0 aPakorn Adulbhan, eChairperson0 aTechapun  Raengkhum, eExamination Committee1 aSharif, M. N., eExaminaion Committee2 aGovernment of New Zealand, eScholarship Donor2 aAsian Institute of Technology.tThesis ;vno. 1114  3Full-Textuhttp://203.159.5.9/ait-thesis/detail.php?q=B23914