Optimal matching for inline resource selection when errors exist in error measurement—A relay production system case study

In a number of industries, an amount of adjustment after a primary operation is required to produce high-quality assembly products and the choice of the resource for the second operation depends on the precision of the first. In this case, the efficient and effective running of the system relies on how the second resources are allocated. Unfortunately, precise and accurate measurement for the processing error and required adjustment of the first operation is not always possible and errors can arise in the error measurement itself. In this paper we investigate a dynamic matching technique used to estimate the measurement error and to subsequently allocate the appropriate resources in a real-time fashion. A case study of a high-quality relay production system is used to illustrate the issues and potential results obtained when the proposed strategy of dynamic matching is used. A computational experiment is used to investigate the method and the two main results indicate: (1) the proposed method yields the maximum production rate and (2) the effectiveness of the method depends on measurement accuracy, but is low over a wide range of measurement accuracy.