The Effects of Multitasking on Quality Inspection in Advanced Manufacturing Systems

Technological and strategic developments have changed the role of human operators in the manufacturing environment. The highly specialized work force of the low-tech manufacturing system has evolved into the multi-functional work force of the high-tech manufacturing system. Among the multiple tasks that an operator is expected to conduct in advanced manufacturing systems (AMS) are job scheduling, inventory planning, machine set-up, problem solving, and quality inspection. The quality inspection task in AMS consists of a search component, frequently conducted by a machine, and a decision making component conducted by the operator. This quality inspection system is often referred to as a hybrid inspection system (HIS). It has been demonstrated that in general the performance of HIS is better than that of pure human or pure automated inspection systems. This research investigated the effects of different types of defects (presented at the same time in the inspected parts), multitasking (concurrently conducting independent tasks), and their interaction on the operator's performance in the quality inspection task (with a memorized quality criteria) in an AMS. The results indicate that the performance of the operator in the quality inspection task while multitasking in an AMS will be determined not only by the variety of defects that can be present in the inspected parts, but also by the mental processing resources required to meet the demand imposed by the multiple independent tasks and the memorized quality criteria. The best performance will be obtained when the additional tasks' load minimizes the monotony of the quality inspection task without interfering with the processing resources needed for the memorized quality criteria.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph. D.

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Industrial and Systems Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Industrial and Systems Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

1997

Author dc:creator

• Pesante-Santana, José A.

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Williges, Robert C.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Woldstad, Jeffrey C.
• Wierwille, Walter W.
• Resto, Pedro
• Koelling, C. Patrick

• Manufacturing
• Quality Inspection
• Multitasking

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

etd-101797-132657

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/29296