Understanding disturbance handling in complex assembly: analysis of complexity index method results

Journal article, 2018

Disturbance handling is crucial for managing production complexity in final assembly. Due to that complexity in a system causes uncertainties and assembly errors, it is important to further investigate what causes disturbance handling and how it can be managed to support operators working with complexity. Production complexity was assessed through the method CompleXity Index (CXI), which captures operators’ view of a station. A statistical analysis of the CXI data was performed and relations between available time and use of work instructions and also seniority and empowerment were found. In addition no relation between empowerment and stress was seen which indicates that perceived empowerment and its relation to stress should be studied further.