Development of Affordable Reconfigurable Tooling in Car Manufacturing Cells – A Case Study

Paper in proceeding, 2015

Assembly fixtures are one of the cost driving factors in automotive industry. Previous research have shown that the utilization of affordable reconfigurable tooling (ART) can be a key-enabling technology to reduce the cost and lead times. Inspired by the research results, Volvo Cars Corporation initiated an automated process control project, the aim of which is the automatic inspection and correction of the defects in Body in White (BIW). The project comprises of three stages – the first of which is the in-line measurement of BIW. Then, the results of measurements are transferred to a common database where process evaluation through case-based reasoning suggests corrective actions on the fixture. The last stage involves the development of flexible tooling to meet these changes in a cost and time effective way. Hence, the aim of this paper is to present preliminary results on the development and implementation of ART as flexible tooling.