A comparative simulation on corrective maintenance strategies in cellular manufacturing considering worker collaboration

This paper devoted to propose a human-machine integrated simulation method to evaluate the effect of corrective maintenance (CM) strategies on manufacturing cells considering the worker´s autonomous and collaborative behaviors. First, a human-machine integrated model is developed to integrate the worker behaviors in the CM process by using agent technology. In this way, worker´s dynamic and cooperative behaviors can be explicitly modeled and simulated. Then, the collaboration behaviors in the CM process and the measurement of the simulation model are discussed. Third, the proposed simulation model is applied in a motor-cycle engine cell, and a comparative simulation experiment is designed and conducted for two different maintenance strategies. Simulation results show the strategy designed with collaboration behavior performed better during the CM process than maintenance strategy without collaboration behavior. The proposed simulation method can dynamically and quantitatively evaluate the CM strategy optimization, especially when considering worker´s collaborative and autonomous behaviors.