Effect of cognitive automation in a material handling system on manufacturing flexibility

Manufacturing flexibility has become a competitive strategy to deal with market uncertainty. The application of advanced automation technology in manufacturing systems has tremendously increased manufacturing flexibility; however, this creates significant mental pressure for operators who must deal with a series of decisions, and this decreases their job satisfaction. In this study, we primarily investigated how cognitive automation and mechanical automaton in the material handling system affect manufacturing flexibility. Cognitive automation is defined as a computerized system that provides relevant information to operators, thereby reducing the cognitive workload; mechanical automation refers to an automated system to reduce the physical workload. The case of a truck‐body production line of a truck company was investigated by applying modified DYNAMO++ for the material handling system. Then, a simulation program, AnyLogic 6.9.0 was used to investigate the effect of the cognitive and mechanical automation in the material handling system on manufacturing flexibility. The research results showed that the levels of cognitive and mechanical automation of the material handling system were increased by 52.4% and 48.0%, respectively, which resulted in improving manufacturing flexibility by 14.2% in cycle time, 53.3% in downtime, and 26.3% in the number of tasks. Cognitive automation, in particular, contributed total improvements in cycle time and downtime of 64.2% and 74.1%, respectively, which showed that cognitive automation has a very critical effect on manufacturing flexibility in the material handling system.