DYNAMIC CONTROL OF IMPERFECT COMPONENT PRODUCTION FOR ASSEMBLY OPERATIONS

We study an instance of a general production problem called the 'match ing problem', which involves extremely tight mating tolerances for ass embly. Situations exist in industry where the production equipment use d to produce components cannot meet the tolerances required for assemb ly. In these situations components are often sorted into different siz e classes and then 'mated' with other components of the same size clas s. As a specific instance of the general matching problem, we focus on the production control of components (needles and bodies) used in fue l injectors in an actual automobile subassembly production facility. I n this setting the manufacturer sorts components into class sizes such that a needle of class i can be matched with a body of class i to sat isfy the tolerance requirements. We study dynamic control rules that a ttempt to optimize the operation of this production facility within re asonable computational limits; we further develop a bound on optimal s ystem performance. In the application studied, the performance of the recommended heuristic is within 0.2% of a bound on optimal performance .