A model for assessment of proactivity potential in technical resources

Paper in proceeding, 2009

The ultimate aim when designing an assembly system is to make it strategically and operationally competitive. Competitive systems for manufacturing, especially assembly systems, have to cope with frequent changes of demands. The aim to have a short response time to customer demand, e.i. mass customization, requires assembly systems that are reliable, have high availability and have ability to produce the right product correctly. This means a combination of short resetting time and ability to vary the systems output of products. A major challenge is to minimize the lead-time that directly has influence on order-to-delivery time, while maintaining product flexibility and robustness to absorb late market changes. Given that the assembly system is working the way it is supposed to do, the order-to-delivery time is directly dependant on the setup time and the operation time. The problem is that automated assembly systems have a low availability due to that technical equipment does not work, caused by lack of knowledge, breakdowns, limited ability to perform the operation etc. This often leeds to that when a company needs variant flexibility they keep the assembly system tasks manual. Totally manual assembly system is not the future for competitiveness. Therefore we need to develop assembly systems that are available and have product flexibility to absorb late market changes, and still have a short order-to delivery time. This paper focuses on the level of automation and is a contribution to future evaluation of how technical solutions either support or work counter to proactivity. The result is a model for evaluation of technical solutions contribution to proactivity This paper describes a model for assessment of technology and assembly system solutions that fulfil requirements for a proactive assembly system. Criteria for proactivity in different technical solutions of assembly system are reviewed.