Malin Karlsson

Could the use of ICT tools be the way to increase competitiveness in Swedish industry

When operators gain increasingly critical roles for the performance of industries, the operator competitiveness becomes more significant to maintain the sustainable competitive advantages of their company. The research project ‘Operator of the Future’ aims to increase the competitiveness of future Swedish operators, by providing them with advanced decision support tools. Multiple factors must be considered when specifying operator needs and designing support tools. This paper focuses on operator maturity for use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools, professionally and domestically. Further, important aspects of social sustainability are discussed relative to the implementation of ICT tools. Results are presented as analysed empirical data, collected in three global Swedish production companies.

Comparing quantifiable methods to measure complexity in assembly

In order to measure complexity and stay competitive, manufacturing companies need to be able to quantify production complexity. For this reason, two methods were developed within the context of two concurrent research projects are compared: the Belgian Complexity Calculator, CXC, measures objective complexity and the Swedish Complexity Index, CXI, focuses on subjective complexity, as experienced by operators in the stations. This paper presents a comparative analysis of the two methods by comparing them to seven relevant existing quantitative methods and by examining results from case studies. It is observed that the two methods can be used as a compliment to one another, where CXC can be used for scanning data automatically CXI can be used for in-depth analysis. In addition, the comparison of existing methods provides insight on how to measure complexity depending on need and scope.

Validation of the complexity index method at three manufacturing companies

In order to manage increasing numbers of product variants, tools that can reduce or manage production complexity are vital. The paper describes CompleXity Index (CXI), an index-based method and tool that assess the complexity at an industrial workstation. CXI was validated at three Swedish manufacturing companies investigating how different roles affect the index calculation and if the method measures what was intended. In all three cases, CXI was seen as a useful tool that provided a holistic view of the problems seen at a station. In addition it was indicated that complexity and unbalanced work was connected and that the method could be used to predict problem areas on new stations.