Matrix structures for high volumes and flexibility in production systems

Flexible production systems addressing the requirements from customized products are currently in focus. Especially for the automotive industry flexible and scalable manufacturing systems are of specific relevance, due to the increasing variety and complexity of products and components over the last decades. Flexible and scalable manufacturing systems must not be designed at the expense of the ability to achieve cost effective large scale production. In the following paper a method is outlined that enables assembly line production to achieve high flexibility combined with high profitability. The key feature of this new approach is the elimination of equal cycle times while sustaining a fluently running process. This is achieved by a specific allocation of several operation steps onto specifically arranged work stations and a control system that regulates the appropriate distribution, ensuring the dynamic configurability of the system. As a result, significant higher efficiency of each station will be achieved, without establishing a special sequence for every product or product variant. Hence the discrepancies between flexibility and efficiency is not only resolved but the demand for maximum capacity can necessitate the application of more flexible systems.