Increases in the number of different powertrains mean car manufacturers must adapt to complexity
According to âFlexing for the Futureâ, a 2035 Global Powertrain Forecast Report sponsored by ABB Robotics, car manufacturers must adopt a more flexible and collaborative approach to their production and logistics infrastructure if they are to maintain profitability and quality into the next decade.
Faced with ambitious targets for mitigating climate change together with huge regional variations in regulations and consumer attitudes, manufacturers are responding by developing platforms and production facilities that accommodate a complex mix of powertrains, from petrol and diesel to hybrid and battery-electric, as well as emerging technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells.
This variability introduces a new level of complexity that extends far beyond the factory walls and throughout the global logistics and supply chains. With conventional ICE powertrains sharing little with their EV successors, the sheer variety of components and processes that must be supported can quickly become unmanageable. Added to which, the speed with which market conditions, government incentives, legislation, and even the underlying technology itself can change means that manufacturers must seek to engineer even greater flexibility into their production facilities if they are to respond to this uncertainty.
The report suggests manufacturers must increasingly turn to digitalisation and automation to deliver the flexibility required to manage this variety.
âBy unravelling traditional long-line production architectures and deploying dedicated modular cells, manufacturers gain the ability to modify or even replace individual cells without incurring costly production interruptions,â says Joerg Reger, Managing Director of ABB Roboticsâ automotive business. âThese zero-loss production changes allow OEMs to start small and scale up key parts of the assembly process by adding or redeploying cells as demands change. By engineering flexibility into the process, we create the means to manage this rising complexity.â
One of the most significant technologies in supporting this flexibility is the switch to more autonomous logistics and material handling in plants, the report suggests, with OEMs increasingly relying on Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) to move materials flexibly.
By creating a âdigital twinâ of the facility, changes can be examined and optimised beforehand, and once a cellâs design has been perfected in the virtual space, it can be quickly rolled-out as a fully validated unit anywhere in the world. Cellular manufacturing also allows robots to be redeployed or moved to areas of high demand with a âlift and shiftâ process, meaning an asset can extend its life beyond its original purpose.
Key to the success of these initiatives is the need for closer collaboration between a manufacturer and their automation partner. The report outlines that the challenge for many OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers is that their expertise tends to be concentrated in particular product technologies and manufacturing processes. The best way, therefore, to develop approaches quickly is through collaboration with a suitable external partner. Combining the process expertise of the supplier with the automation expertise of an outside company can enable the co-creation of automation systems in which products are not only âdesigned for manufactureâ but âdesigned for automationâ.
That can lead to automation penetrating further into the production process, as evidenced by the growth in robotics use in final trim and assembly, or new technologies that remove the need for labour-intensive processes that can slow down production.
However, as the report notes, achieving flexible automation is not just a matter of acquiring robots; it requires a completely fresh view of how to maximise manufacturing efficiency in an uncertain and rapidly changing environment.
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