Inspection allocation cost model for serial assembly systems

Nowadays the modern assembly systems are usually designed to guarantee high levels of quality and process performance. Consequently, during the assembly process, several inspection activities are necessary in order to assure high levels of quality of end products. For each inspection station, scientific contributions assume a known constant defect rate for all operations, while others use a random rate approach. In this paper, the proposed model considers a time-dependent defect rate. Furthermore, a cost model is introduced and studied for the inspection allocation configuration in the assembly systems. The impact of reliability behavior of components is investigated on several inspection stations configurations. The application of the model to a real case study demonstrates its validity in the inspection allocation problem solution. Finally, several considerations are reported about the future researches, that the authors will carry out.