SAI TIRUMALA NVR ENGINEERING COLLEGE

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

AUTOMATION IN MANUFACTURING R13 REG
IMPORTANT UESTIONS
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UNIT-III
1. A six-station automatic assembly line has an ideal cycle time of 12 sec. Downtime occurs
for two reasons. First, mechanical and electrical failures cause line stops that occur with a
frequency of once per 50 cycles. Average downtime for these causes is 3 min. Second,
defective components also result in downtime. The fraction defect rate of each of the six
components added to the base part at the six stations is 2%. The probability that a defective
component will cause a station jam is 0.5 for all stations. Downtime per occurrence for
defective parts is 2 min.
Determine
i) yield of assemblies that are free of defective components,
ii) proportion of assemblies that contain at least one defective component,
iii) average production rate of good product, and
iv) uptime efficiency.
2. What is assembly line balancing, discuss in detail?
3. A proposal has been made to replace one of the current manual stations with an automatic
work head on a 10-station transfer line. The current system has six automatic work heads and
four manual stations. The current cycle time is 30 s. The bottleneck station is the manual
station that is the candidate for replacement. The proposed automatic station would allow the
cycle time to be reduced to 24 s. The new station costs at Rs.25/min. Other cost data for the
existing line:
Co = Rs.15/min; Cas = Rs.10/min; Cat = Rs.10/min. Breakdowns occur at each of the six
automatic workstations with a probability p =0.01. The average downtime per breakdown is 3
min. It is estimated that the value of p for the new automatic station would be p = 0.02. The
average downtime for the line would be unaffected. Material for the product costs Rs.50/unit.
Tooling costs can be neglected (Ct = 0). Which is the best method among the new automated
station and the current manual station based on the cost per unit?

4. What are the objectives of use of flow lines in automation and explain various types of
flow lines and their advantages?

5. What are the various factors influence manufacturing lead time (MLT) and explain the
methods to reduce transfer time?

6. Briefly discuss the following related to the efficiency of an automated flow

lines:
i) Efficiency of line without storage buffer
ii) Efficiency of line with storage buffer

Prepared by T. RAVI TEJA