Use of Assembly Information in Global Production Networks

Paper in proceeding, 2015

Competition on the world market has forced manufacturers worldwide towards higher quality and performance targets in production systems. Therefore, the manufacturers need to be more cost efficient in their processes. Due to the rapid changes in technology and market demands the assembly operators meet a high amount of product variants every day. Earlier research has shown that depending on how information is presented to the assembly operator the quality on produced items. Therefore, a case study has been performed to understand how assembly information is treated at different productions sites in different countries in one production network. The case study has been carried out through a web survey addressed to 12 different production sites in seven countries. The case study is also compared with a previous case study addressed to production sites in Sweden. Since the study is focused on Global Production Networks the focus of the study is put on how diversity appears within a production network. The case study shows that diversity may not just be perceived between countries and different production sites, it can also be perceived within one production site.