Co-evolution of products and manufacturing capabilities and application in auto-parts assembly

Automotive engine accessories change frequently due to changes in design and market demands and their assembly lines also adapt to the new product requirements and new technologies. This paper presents novel co-evolution hypotheses and a model for products and their manufacturing capabilities, inspired by the biological co-evolution, which uses Cladistics analysis of the historical development data of both. The model embodies a three-fold approach; first it identifies evolution courses of products and manufacturing capabilities, then it searches for the best matching courses to ascertain manufacturing co-evolution, and finally informs future planning guided by the established co-evolution scheme. A case study of a class of automobile engine accessories and their corresponding assembly lines are modeled and used for illustration and validation. The results reveal the existence of strong symbiotic co-evolution relationships. The use of the proposed hypotheses and co-evolution model increases the efficiency of synthesizing and co-developing those accessories and their assembly lines in the future by highlighting their most evolved features and revealing the need for modifying product features and/or fully exploring the available manufacturing capabilities before acquiring new ones.