Identifying and evaluating flexible approaches for automobile body production areas

The increasing variety of models with simultaneously lower and more volatile quantities in the demanding environment of automotive engineering calls for flexible production systems. Considering an automobile production process, the body shop can be characterized as particularly inflexible. This results from highly product-specific and automated technical solutions such as rigid fixture systems and grippers, commonly used to fulfil the demanding geometrical requirements of body parts and the respective production system. Therefore, several approaches have been developed to increase the body production flexibility. This paper presents a three-step methodology to identify promising flexibilization approaches for each area of body production, comparing the flexibility needs of the area with the flexibility offers of specific flexibilization approaches. The outcome of this methodology enables body production planners to derive in which flexibilization approaches to invest and which approaches to discard.