Mathematical Model to Monitory Exposure of People to Occupational Risk in Manual Assembly Processes

The manual assembly processes and the dynamic industrial environment usually requires fast adjustments between work teams and workstations to accomplish customers’ needs. Sometimes, activities are scheduled without considering occupational health of work teams. Those occurrences can compromise work conditions and employee’s health. Thus, the specific objective of this study was to develop a mathematical programming model, to permit monitoring the exposure to occupational risks of workers teams. The mathematical model proposed was validated through solutions generated via the CPLEX® optimization software and OPL language, which was applied in an assembly line of bicycle handlebar where 6 employees produce 800 units per day. First, the results for the original scenario were generated considering the people all the time in the same workstation. The solution was achieved in 12 ms and provided as solution OF = 26153. Then, to allow a deeper perception about the importance of monitoring people exposure at the shop floor, limits of subjection were established. The assignments between work teams and workstations were generated considering those limits. An admissible solution OF = 17888 with the potential to ensure the same output of bicycle handlebar was found in 14 ms. It is expected that the balanced employees’ exposure to the work conditions may contribute to minimize occupational diseases, increase the active aging and ensure future healthy generations, in different manual assembly processes.