Method for a Cross-architecture Assembly Line Planning in the Automotive Industry with Focus on Modularized, Order Flexible, Economical and Adaptable Assembly Processes

In the last years the number of offered vehicle derivatives increased. In respect of series vehicle production by means of high efficiency each assembly line normally can realize only one vehicle architecture with a defined number of vehicle derivatives. This is the reason, why additional derivatives or new designed vehicles only can be managed within the production network for specific derivatives and different working-time models in the factories, if even. The demand of increasing flexibility and low investment rates can be faced by enabling assembly lines to realize more than one vehicle architecture. The developed method uses degrees of freedom in the assembly order to configure economical cross-architectural assembly lines - by taking in account the most important product specification and assembly design premises.