The road to an automated truck maintenance workshop:opportunities and challenges

Automation is seen as a solution that many industries are adopting into their operations in order to meet the competitive market. Earlier researchers have shown that automation is a way for humans to extend the capability of tools and machines by using control systems and information technologies to relieve humans from heavy and dangerous work. The aim of this thesis is to gain an understanding of automation technologies and its applications in three major industries. The thesis also discusses the industry maturity, benefits and challenges of the three industries. The project is part of the Volvo AB’s project: Efficient Maintenance for Sustainable Transport Solutions (EMATS). A qualitative research strategy, semi-structured interviews, unstructured interviews and participant observation are used to collect empirical data. Different sources and kinds of secondary data have been well collected. This thesis proposes five levels of automation for the vehicle maintenance workshop. The first level is totally manual. At this level, the technician identifies and diagnoses a fault with his experience and fixes these faults using basic tools. The second level is vehicle diagnostics assistance. At this level, the technician uses a diagnostic tool to diagnose the fault and fixes these faults using flexible tools. The third level is partial automation. At this level, an automated system is used to fix the faults that were found in the vehicle diagnostics scenario. The fourth level is high automation. At this level, an automated system is used to diagnose, fix and verify the faults. This level is not fully matured to fix all faults in its knowledge base and requires a human presence at the workshop. The fifth level is totally automatic. This level can reliably identify all faults and correct them. The main theoretical contribution of this thesis develops a framework to define the levels of an automated truck maintenance workshop and describes how the truck maintenance workshop will develop through the levels in the future. To succeed in the big change in the maintenance workshop, efficient change management strategies need to be implemented. The analysis of the workshop classifies the execution of tasks in today's truck maintenance workshop as vehicle diagnostics assistance. Currently, the work involved in the workshop is not ergonomically friendly to the technician. Finally, a concluding discussion on the benefits and challenges of automated truck maintenance workshop is argued.