Workforce reconfiguration strategies in manufacturing systems: a state of the art

This paper provides a literature review and an analysis of the studies related to workforce reconfiguration strategies as a part of workforce planning for various production environments. The survey demonstrates that these strategies play a crucial role in the resilience and flexibility of manufacturing systems since they help industrial companies to quickly adapt to frequent changes in demand both in terms of volume and product mix. Five strategies are considered: the use of utility, temporary, walking, cross-trained workers, and bucket brigades. They are analysed in the context of mixed and multi-model manual assembly lines, dedicated, cellular, flexible, and reconfigurable manufacturing systems. The review shows that most of the researches on these reconfiguration strategies focus on multi- or mixed-model assembly lines. At the same time, few studies consider workers team reconfiguration in flexible and reconfigurable manufacturing systems. Finally, this paper reveals several promising research directions in workforce reconfiguration planning, namely, the use of both machine and workforce reconfigurations, consideration of the ergonomic aspects, the combination of multiple workforce reconfiguration strategies, the study of workforce reconfiguration in human-robot collaborative systems, and the use of new technologies in human-machine industrial environments.