Devising a Novel Means of Introducing Collaborative Decision-Making to an Automated Water Bottling Plant to Study the Impact of Positive Drift

Cycle time refers to the amount of time allotted to accomplish a certain process in an assembly process. The deviation from the optimal cycle time is technically referred to as drift. Drift can be negative or positive. Positive drift represents the time span in which an assembly line exceeds the prescribed cycle time. While previous studies have shown that an automated assembly line can reduce the positive drift considerably, this paper looks to devise a novel means of introducing a collaborative decision-making framework involving humans as well as machines to reduce the impact of positive drift. This is done using the case study of a water bottling plant. The paper initially showcases the automated operation of the water bottling plant. Secondly, the paper examines where collaborative decision-making can be introduced in the plant. Thirdly, a set of preliminary results which point to the effectiveness of the collaborative approach is described. The paper is concluded by looking at how the approach can be expanded to create a generic framework for similar plants in the future.