Development of a Highly Flexible Geometry Station for Versatile Production Systems in Automotive Body Construction : A Station designed for Joining of Body-in-White Assemblies duringan Integration of Electric Vehicles

Sammanfattning: The research in this report seeks to develop a highly flexible geometry station for joining futureBody-in-White (BiW) assemblies. The goal is to eliminate the need for a complete reconstructionof a production line during integration of new car bodies in a contemporary production.Today's BiW production is performed in sequential lines, where joining equipment is arranged ina specific order for each model geometry. An increasing model portfolio forces manufacturers todevelop production systems that allow an integration of new models. Electrified alternatives ofexisting models are now developed and put into production. These models have similarappearance as conventional models, but with a completely different principle of driveline due tothe propulsion. This means that new interfaces and platforms have to be developed and mustnow be integrated into a current production. Today's production lines are not prepared forcoming changes, and current stations can only handle a limited number of variants. Integration ofnew geometries into a contemporary production line is not sufficiently efficient from aproduction perspective. The goal of the future is to make such an integration possible.Initially, current and future production scenarios were studied. Based on this, four types ofproduction scenarios, which a highly flexible geometry station can be integrated into, were set up.An integration can take place in different ways depending on how a highly flexible geometrystation is compounded, therefore, different cases were created and compared in a case study.Internal and external benchmarking of production systems were made to compare the availablesolutions for increasing stations flexibility in a BiW production.As reference for the project, a concept for a highly flexible geometry station has been developedand is therefore described initially before an additional depth has been realized. The furtherconceptualization of a highly flexible geometry in this report is presented in the form of amorphological composition of technologies that can increase a station's flexibility, as well asvisualization of a station principles through layouts and cycle time charts. The result of theanalysis generated several concepts that hold different degrees of capacity, footprint andflexibility. The focus was to achieve a high level of flexibility for integration of new models, withnew geometries, in a current production. The conclusion was that the highly flexible geometrystation can, in a contemporary production, produce independently in low volumes. Alternatively,produce higher volumes when it is integrated as a complement in a novel, not yet implemented,production concept.