Proactive assembly ergonomical and geometrical quality assurance for sustainable production

Project time: 2013 – 2016

Budget: 11 093 000 SEK

Funding: Fordonsteknisk forskning och innovation, FFI

The project goal was to create methods and tools for proactive assembly ergonomic and geometric quality assurance for sustainable production.

In the automotive industry, humans are an important part of the production. 80% of all the activities in the final assembly are carried out by humans. There are often high cognitive and physical load demands on the operator, which in turn increases the risk of assembly-related errors and quality deficiencies. Quality deficiencies are more time consuming and costly to repair the later they are discovered: up to 10 times more if discovered in the factory and another 12 times more if discovered on the market. If the operator gets poor ergonomic conditions it leads to 6-8 times more assembly related errors compared to good conditions. A full 93% of all errors occur at high and medium level of physical load and as many as 86% of the errors are geometry related. The project has been able to prove that there is a clear mathematical relationship between the geometric quality and manual assembly complexity, but that only 12% of the geometric quality assurance process include process impact today. The intention was to develop and validate tools that would be implemented in two demonstrators and clearly show that poor assembly ergonomics and high assembly complexity gives high risk for poor geometric quality, high environmental impact and high costs. Both assembly ergonomics and assembly complexity affect how many errors that occur. The worse the assembly ergonomic conditions are, the more errors occur and the costs for fault repairs and disposal of materials increase. The 16 criteria for assessment of high or low manual assembly complexity have been verified. The criteria include ergonomics assembly, with both physical and cognitive load taken into consideration. The project has proven that several complex criteria together affect the failure rate and the costs for fault repairs. However, it has not been possible to determine which of the complexity criteria that have the greatest impact on the failure rate and costs. The consequence is that all 16 criteria should always be considered. In the project, a verified calculation model for predictive assessment of the assembly ergonomic conditions related to quality has been developed. This calculation model can serve as a decision support when selecting assembly solutions and manufacturing concepts from an ergonomics-quality-economyperspective. The relationships between assembly ergonomics and quality outcome can hereby be proven in economic terms.
CAT tool demonstrator for proactive geometric quality assurance In the design of a product it is assumed that all the reference points for assembly are in proper physical contact and that the degrees of freedom are locked. However, an operator does not always succeed in this and the article gets a different position, creating a difference between virtual and real results. Therefore, the project has introduced a new measure of robustness which includes both sensitivity to variation and assembly complexity. This is implemented as an analysis function in the CAT tool RD&T, where as well the stability analysis function (robustness) as the variation analysis function (fulfilment of requirements) take assembly complexity into account. Two industrial tests have been performed, one at Volvo GTT and one at Scania CV. From each company one product concept was chosen. Both concepts had quality issues in running production and the level of assembly complexity was noted to be high. In the tests using the demonstrator, the need for a proactive geometric quality assurance work that takes both the assembly process and operator impact into account was verified. The tests also verified the accuracy of the demonstrator. If the methods and tools developed in the PEGASUS project had been used in early phases for these product concepts, the high level of assembly complexity had been detected early in product development, rather than in production. In addition, a new process for geometry assurance has been developed. It includes a method and process description of how the CAT tool should be used. If a company chooses to follow the newly FFI Fordonsstrategisk Forskning och Innovation | www.vinnova.se/ffi 6 developed geometry assurance process, while using the CAT tool, 100% of the simulations will include the impact of the process instead of the current 12%. Excel demonstrator for assessment of manual assembly complexity Another demonstrator enables assessment and analysis of manual assembly complexity on a simple
platform, Excel. Originally, the target group for this demonstrator was small / medium enterprises, but also among large companies there is an interest for this tool. In the latter instance, knowledge and awareness of manual assembly complexity can be spread to departments that usually do not work with this focus. The results in the project has exceeded the expected targets. We have developed two industrially verified demonstrators with more functionality than was the intention of the project description. There are also clear method descriptions of how these should be used. Improved ability to identify potential quality and ergonomics hazards already during the early product development phase is expected to yield the following results and effects for sustainable production:
• an early awareness of the impact of the process
• fewer errors in production
• less waste
• improved correlation between virtual simulations and real results
• increased efficiency
• increased quality
• reduced costs
• improved work environment
• increased profitability
• improved competitiveness
• shortened lead time from development to finished product and ongoing production
• increased flexibility when early, proactive and conscious choices free up time and resources to
other activities

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