Quote:
Originally Posted by NoHaveMSG
Coming from a small company watching videos of large manufacturing is always really impressive. People talk about athletes when discussing efficiency of motion. I think of modern automotive production plants  |
I had the dubious honour of being a lead in building a new sub assembly plant from scratch. It was the front and rear suspension modules for a vehicle that nobody on this forum owns. Pretty much 8:24 to 10:50 in the video. The whole units were prebuilt on an assembly line that was just a mini version of the car one. The planning was intense and actions were measured down to fractions of seconds.
Was pretty much an updated version of the one in this video (on Youtube so I guess is safe to show) but not doing BMW! I spent some time in the plant shown to work out how the new one could be even more efficient. Biggest difference is we went with robotic carts instead of the fixed conveyor shown. We also have more robots handing the assemblies than they have. That plant is actually pretty oldschool.
We do the same "just in sequence" that he talks about. Each unit is built to a specific VIN and goes on that vehicle. It is literally built an hour before it gets bolted on the vehicle. People get this idea that there are big warehouses of parts built and ready to go but almost nothing are sitting around the assembly plants waiting to be put on. Even things such as the nuts and bolts don't show up until the scheduled build.