Design of a new workstation in a productive process: Importance of multidisciplinary integration

Abstract

During the 7th semester of the Integrated Master Degree in Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) at University of Minho - Portugal, teams of students develop projects in interaction with industry. The project lasts the whole semester and each team works in a different company. This type of projects is formally included in the IEM curricular structure through the course unit (CU) PIEGI2 (Integrated Project in IEM 2) and in fact involves all the remaining five CU of the semester as PSU (Project Supporting Courses). This paper is associated to the work carried out by a team of students in an electrical wiring company (supplier of the automotive industry) and, using qualitative analysis, aims to show the importance of the integration of the contents addressed by the PSUs. Thus, the main goals of this empirical paper are: (i) describe the design process of a new workstation (required due to a problem identified by a customer) and (ii) show how the multidisciplinary integration was important in this project. To design the new workstation, various concepts/tools from the several PSUs were used, namely: (i) anthropometry and illuminance (PSU - Ergonomic Workplace Analysis), (ii) Business Process and Modelling Notation - BPMN (PSU - Integrated Production Management), (iii) Generic Product Data Management - GenPDM (PSU - Production Information Systems), (iv) Value Stream Mapping - VSM and Key Performance Indicators - KPI (PSU - Production Systems Organization II) and (v) SIMIO (PSU - Simulation). By combining contents of all the PSUs of PIEGI2, the students' team was able to develop an integrated solution encompassing not only the physical installation but also managerial aspects (e.g. product data management). Although the new workstation was not yet implemented, the work developed by the students was highly appreciated by the company engineer's and by all the teachers involved.