Method for Configuring Product and Order Flexible Assembly Lines in the Automotive Industry

AbstractIn the last few years the number of offered vehicle derivatives in the multi variant serial production of the automotive industry increased. The existing assembly lines have to manage many ramp ups. It is necessary to increase the product and order flexibility of existing assembly lines to manage these challenges. This paper details the preconditions to learn, which assembly configurations fulfill the requirements of existing, further and future products. Therefore the developed method uses degrees of freedom in the assembly order

Method for planning modular, product flexible assembly configurations in the multi variant serial production of the automotive industry

Die Automobilindustrie sieht sich mit der Herausforderung eines wachsenden Produktportfolios und neuer Fahrzeugtechnologien konfrontiert. Dadurch ist zukünftig die Nachfrageentwicklung kaum noch prognostizierbar und folglich auch nicht das fahrzeugspezifische Nachfragevolumen. Besondere Bedeutung ergibt sich daraus für das Gewerk der Montage, in dem ein Großteil der Fahrzeugvarianz entsteht. Indem mehr als ein Fahrzeug variantenmix-unabhängig auf einer gemeinsamen Linie montierbar ist, kann die Kapazität der Montagelinie für unterschiedliche Fahrzeuge bedarfsorientiert genutzt werden. Nachweislich existieren Freiheitsgrade in der Anordnung von Montagemodulen, die Arbeitsvorgänge zum Verbau einer Baugruppe bzw. eines Bauteils beinhalten. In der heutigen Montageplanung werden diese jedoch nicht methodisch genutzt. Darin besteht die Forschungslücke. Die entwickelte Planungsmethode nutzt die Freiheitgrade zwischen zuvor definierten, fahrzeug- und linienübergreifenden Montagemodulen für die Konfiguration fahrzeugflexibler Endmontagelinien.In the future, the automotive industry has to manage a further increasing product portfolio and new vehicle technologies. In consequence, the vehicle-specific demand volume is not predictable anymore. Thereby especially the assembly lines are affected, because they realize the biggest outcome of the vehicle variability. If it is possible to assemble more than one vehicle on the same assembly line without any restrictions in the variation mix, the future challenge could be managed. There exist degrees of freedom between assembly modules, which allow building up alternative assembly configurations. The research gap currently is that in the assembly planning the degrees of freedom are not used methodically, although the planning of vehicle-flexible assembly configurations could be supported. As a result, assembly modules have to be defined. After analyzing the vehicle and the assembly line specific degrees of freedom between these assembly modules, it is possible to configure modular, product-flexible assembly lines, which also allow the integration of new models into existing lines

Planning Method for the Design of Flexible as Well as Economic Assembly and Logistics Processes in the Automotive Industry

AbstractThe automotive industry is facing the fluctuation in demand regarding the variation and amount. Therefore the flexibility and changeability of an assembly line has to be calculable as well as the interaction between the assembly and logistics processes have to be considered in order to keep competitiveness.This paper proposes a generic method, how to make a strategic decision between flexibility/changeability, economic efficiency as well as assembly and logistics processes