Challenges of Quality Assurance in Early Planning and Ramp Up of Production Facilities - Potentials of Planning Automation via Virtual Engineering

Abstract

The use of Virtual Engineering is getting more and more common in production facility planning in the automotive sector. However, there are still discrepancies between the reality and the software generated models. That is why the process of quality assurance is crucial. This article aims at determining the current challenges in the planning process of production facilities, which are to be processed by means of Virtual Engineering, and limitations that occur in practice during the execution of Virtual Engineering in digital production facility engineering. We strive to maximize the utilization of underlying potentials by seeking out solutions. Our approach involves conducting a systematic literature review as well as seven expert interviews to investigate the current practical implementation of Virtual Engineering at Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). Additionally, we aim to validate the influencing variables obtained from the literature in relation to the challenges, limitations, and potentials of Virtual Engineering. We show that there are current challenges in the planning process of production facilities, where the areas of functionality, equipment selection, safety, accessibility, and key performance indicators should already be secured in a virtual environment by means of Virtual Engineering. Our findings reveal significant limiting factors in the application of Virtual Engineering as quality assurance. This limitations arises as a result of the reliance on manual activities, which ultimately hinders progress in terms of time efficiency, quality assurance, and cost-effectiveness. In order to optimize this, we show that the potential of standardization of the work steps is required to define an automation that fully exploits the potentials of Virtual Engineering.