Mobile Assembly Units as Enabler for Changeable Assembly Lines

This paper presents a novel approach to guarantee changeability for assembly lines of an automobile manufacturer which involves the usage of the modular design of a mobile platform as basis for a wide-ranging portfolio of automated and partly-automated solutions within the final assembly. Using mobile platforms as basis for assembly units, production can react to a broad variety of foreseen and unforeseen changes (e.g. relocating the assembly unit, switching from cyclical to continuous flow production). The benefits of using these mobile assembly units enable the ability to react easily on various changes. In order to prove the possibility to react on foreseen and unforeseen changes, a variation of the degree of automation and also a change from cyclical to continuous flow production are demonstrated in a use case about seal-plug assembly with lightweight robots.