The Effect of Learning Factors due to Low Volume Order Fluctuations in the Automotive Wiring Harness Production

In the automotive wiring harness industry the manual assembly is very common, especially in the companies producing a big variety of products and low production volumes. Moreover, small, intermittent and even occasional orders result the fact that production is always at the start-up phase. Therefore, the processing time is not stable, fluctuates and thus planning becomes a complex issue. This paper proposes the method of calculating the impact of learning at the complicated planning situations and indicates that planning which omits learning factors is the major source of bottlenecks and other efficiency loses in the manual assembly. The authors of this research believe that good understanding of the learning impact due to manufacturing fluctuation on the particular production expressed in quantitative indicators will provide significant information for the decision making and improve the robustness of planning and control process in this way; finally, will represent how costly bad decisions could be.