Analysis of automotive body assembly system configurations for quality and productivity

Traditional assembly systems for automotive bodies have been designed using serial configurations. Advancements in controls and other technologies allow implementation of alternative system configurations, such as parallel and hybrid configurations. These configurations offer improvements in productivity, but their performance with regard to quality, particularly dimensional variation, is not well understood. We show that trade-offs exist between quality and productivity for various configurations. The traditional serial assembly line offers the worst performance for both productivity and quality. Important factors that impact these measures are identified. Guidelines are developed to aid the selection of a system configuration that is appropriate for total system performance.

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