People

Abstract

The assembly process has traditionally been labor intensive, which with the human propensity toward variability of output, inconsistency of performance, and fatigue, has more often than not resulted in chaos and inefficiency. The corollary is that manually assembled products require and support a lot of nonproductive activities (such as inspection and rework) in order to cover-up for the inherent failure of humans as productive elements. Humans can also be very malevolent (if they lack job satisfaction) and by acts of deliberate sabotage or pranks—to break the monotony—can at best cause the rejections of assemblies or at worst the total shut down of the FAS.