Effective relationships of factors in a manual assembly line environment

A manual assembly line environment includes a large number of factors that affect the performance of the system. At the moment, these factors and their effects are investigated in separate research papers that relate to different disciplines, and thus there is an increasing need to handle them together. This study contributes to the understanding of these factors and their relationships from both an operations and a human perspective. The factors are examined in the case of a mixed–model assembly line in which process design and agile responses to variation are the key features in terms of performance. The information on the relevant factors and their effects is primarily based on the literature. The study shows that a network analysis method can be used to present this information in a more visual and understandable form to show the importance, connections, and commonality of factors.