Agile assembly of electric vehicles through free chaining

 

The shift towards electromobility has profound implications for the development of OEMs and the entire value chain of the automotive industry. In particular, these effects present current assembly systems with the challenges of integrating electric vehicles into existing assembly lines and of reacting quickly and with little effort to short-term changes in the sales market. The overarching vision of the "AIMFREE" project is to meet these challenges with an agile assembly environment that dissolves the previously established rigid interlinking of the assembly stations, so that the time and financial costs for integrating electric vehicles into existing assembly lines or reconfiguring an assembly environment due to a change in the sales market are minimized.

The methods and technology components to implement this vision are an agile planning procedure, a simulation-supported, automated scenario analysis for short-term assembly system design and a dynamic central control system for the implementation of free chaining of workstations or short-term rescheduling. An overall model of an assembly line is developed to link the simulation, the control system and the planning. Furthermore, the assembly environment with modular and autonomously reconfigurable workstations and flexible intralogistics, a flexible main material flow through AGVs or self-propelled vehicles, which use the existing on-board sensors and their own drive, will enable the required versatility and flexibility. For the demonstrative implementation of such an assembly environment, the final assembly up to and including the end-of-line area is considered.
The joint project will be managed by the Chair of Production Metrology and Quality Management under the direction of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Robert H. Schmitt.

AIMFREE is integrated in the funding measure for the "further development of electromobility" of the funding area "Förderrichtlinie - ElektroMobil" of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy - BMWi.