New Concept in Automotive Manufacturing: A System-based Manufacturing

The automotive industry has been going through a continuous process of adjustment due to the changes in its operating environment. Such factors; the govremental in addition to the National Standards Setting Bodies NSB’s regulations, for example the Corporate Average Fuel Economy CAFE standards controls the OEMs fleet fuel economy average, leading to the introduction of smaller vehicles or the use of light weight materials (low density) in the vehicle structures. In addition to the new environmental regulatons that have led to changes in the material usage, the levels of production emissions, and the expended energy. Additionally the NSB’s have different focus in different countries so for OEMs operating in different markets, they would have to respond to different regulations; for example the NSB’s in Eruope such as the DIN (German Institute for Standardization) and the CEN (The French Creative Environmental Network) have a recent focus on safety systems and standards in automobiles, while the american NSB’s such as American National Standards Institute ANSI focuses on the final vehicle testing protocoles. All these regulations have a direct effect on the automotive manufatuirng; to provide specific exmaple; the automotive OEMs have shifted their paint from the typical solventborne into waterborne paints, due to the Volatile Organic Compounds VOCs emissions. This shift led to additional production steps, such as the flash off zone which is necessary to control the amount of water evaporation from the paint once it is applied on the vehicle shell. Also, the waterborne paint requires tigher control over the spray booth air conditioning requirements, whih have led to more energy usage in the paint area. Another effect on the manufacturing came from the use of the Tailor Welded Blanks, Coils and Tubes TW B/C/T technology which is introduced to allow designers to custom mix different steel grades or panel thicknesses for some body panels to meet the different functional requirements (load-bearing vs. Non-load bearing) across the panel; a good example of the TWB is the door inner panel which has a stiffness requirement at the hinge area, hence thicker or stronger steel is used in that area while the rest of the panel is non-load bearing structure, which means that a thinner or weaker steel grade can be used. The TWB technolgy enabled the designers more freedom to met fucntionalities and save weight at the same time, however this technology have added several steps such as laser welding different pieces to from the new blank, which also require stacking and de-stacking steps; more importantly if the OEMs don’t have enough