Design for Agile Manufacturing: Product Design Principles that Enhance Agile Manufacturing of Powertrain Systems

Abstract

While companies in the entire automotive industry deal with increasing volatility and uncertainty, new trends and innovations pressure especially powertrain margins. The concept of agile manufacturing enables companies to remain competitive in such an environment. As some authors declare that the success of agile manufacturing is largely determined by the design of products, this paper investigates how these two phases in the powertrain lifecycle can be linked. A literature review was conducted to identify DFX guidelines that reflect the agile manufacturing characteristics: flexibility, profitability, speed, proactivity and quality. More than 200 design principles were collected and clustered into seven design objectives according to their main purposes. A first questionnaire was conducted at an engineering company having its main business field in powertrain development in order to define the importance of these principles to enhance agile powertrain manufacturing. The results are presented in a design catalogue. Through an additional literature review the required capabilities of manufacturing systems to fulfill the five agile characteristics were identified. The rating of these capabilities was subject of a second questionnaire at several manufacturing companies in the automotive industry. The employment of a domain mapping matrix supports the selection and application of appropriate product design principles aiming to enhance specific agile manufacturing capabilities. Finally, the developed procedure model was evaluated.