Demystifying the effectiveness in design of production systems - Investigating the coupling between acquisition and maintenance of equipment
Licentiate thesis, 2021
To investigate the performance of production system design, this thesis presents comparative case studies from powertrain manufacturing engineering in a large heavy truck company. The focus is on the equipment acquisition process and its impact on the performance of the purchased equipment and specifically equipment breakdown cost due to design weakness. The investigation was performed both quantitatively, comparing breakdown costs for newly acquired equipment to equipment nearing their end of life, and qualitatively, comparing the ability to prevent breakdowns in four re-purchasing acquisition projects. The thesis shows that: 1) maintenance cost per machine is increasing during the initial phase of the life cycle; 2) new machinery have higher breakdown costs than the end-of-life machines; 3) the design weakness share of maintenance problems unexpectedly only increases during the initial phase of the life cycle. The conclusion is that the engineering process studied does not become more effective over time.
The main barriers to effective design of production systems are found to be connected to how knowledge flows internally and externally in the organisation, and more specifically during the organisational and individual dimensions, rather than the technological aspect. Further research in knowledge management is recommended as well as a study of how digitalisation might benefit the production system design engineering community from a socio-technological point of view.
early equipment management
maintenance management
engineering knowledge management
manufacturing engineering
equipment acquisition
production system design
Author
Malin Hane Hagström
Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Product Development
Hane Hagström, M., Bergsjö, D., Sathyanarayana, A., Machado, C. (in review). Visualising wastes and losses in automotive production flows (across multiple plants and organisations) for increased accuracy in improvement prioritisations
Evaluating the effectiveness of machine acquisitions and design by the impact on maintenance cost – a case study
IFAC-PapersOnLine,;Vol. 53(2020)p. 25-30
Paper in proceeding
Hane Hagström, M., Bergsjö, D., Martinsson, H., Blomberg, J., (in review). Reducing professional maintenance losses in production by efficient knowledge management in machine acquisitions
MALEKC
VINNOVA (2017-03059), 2017-10-09 -- 2019-10-08.
KIDSAM: Knowledge and information-sharing in digital collaborative projects
VINNOVA (2018-03966), 2018-11-01 -- 2021-11-30.
Subject Categories
Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics
Other Mechanical Engineering
Other Engineering and Technologies not elsewhere specified
Driving Forces
Sustainable development
Areas of Advance
Production
Publisher
Chalmers
Sunnanvinden, Hörsalsvägen, Chalmers University of Technology, Johanneberg, Gothenburg
Opponent: Monica Bellgran, KTH