Planning of workstations in a modular automotive assembly system

In a turbulent market environment an assembly system with a high level of flexibility and changeability is necessary. Especially in the automotive industry the developments towards product differentiation and shorter product lifecycles require highly flexible and changeable assembly systems. One basic enabler to reach this goal is modularization. In a modular assembly system having uncoupled workstations and a flexible transportation of products, however, the methods of production planning need to be adapted as well. In this paper, the well-established methodology of assembly line balancing for the planning of workstations in an assembly line production is analyzed. However, it is shown that this methodology as well as other methods to plan workstations in an assembly system are not applicable for a modular assembly system due to its different characteristics. For this reason, a new planning method to assign assembly tasks to workstations is developed, based on the different targets and restrictions of a modular assembly system. In this method, the assignment of assembly tasks to workstations is primarily based on their position in the assembly priority chart of the products being assembled. The application of the described method is shown in an example of a product-based modular automotive assembly system developed by the authors. In this context, the method is one main aspect of planning and operating a modular assembly system, which is supposed to handle the further increasing diversity and dynamics of the automotive industry by its high level of flexibility and changeability. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.