Design for Automated Assembly of Large and Complex Products: Experiences from a Marine Company Operating in Norway

Abstract To compete in today's global market companies must continuously improve their products and manufacturing processes. During the past several years, many Norwegian-based companies have outsourced production due to the high operational cost level. The trend is that only the production of complex, knowledge-based products which require advanced engineering, strict quality requirements and high degree of customization remains in Norway. Even for this type of products, more cost-effective product realization methods need to be established in order to strengthen overall competitiveness long term. This paper presents results from an ongoing case study done in a global marine company with operations in Norway, seeking to increase competitive advantage by improving capabilities in automation solutions for manufacturing—despite the fact that the production of large and complex products is usually regarded as particularly difficult to automate in an economical way. This paper aims to research the multifaceted challenge of moving from a manual to an automated assembly process for this type of products when this endeavor involves transferring technology from the early premature phase to full industrial implementation in parallel with the product development process. The results presented in this paper are preliminary as the technology development project is still ongoing. One of the early findings indicates that by re-designing large and complex products for handling with standard robots, the case company was able to automate assembly of its products. Furthermore, having a dedicated team enabled delivering a demonstrator after only two years by applying an Open Innovation approach, pulling knowledge from external experts in automation and iteratively integrating this with own organizational capabilities including technology platform, manufacturing strategy, design for manufacturing/assembly and integrated product and process development.

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