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Customer LoginsAudi and BMW outline future production techniques
German premium OEMs Audi and BMW are accelerating their move to Industry 4.0 digital production as the automotive industry faces its biggest overall technology shift in more than a century.
IHS Markit Perspective
- Significance: BMW and Audi have been outlining their plans for vehicle production, with hugely enhanced automation, transport robots, and digital supply chain networks to the fore.
- Implications: Using computing power and digitisation to greatly improve logistics will be a massive part of the shift in future production techniques, with BMW stating that currently every day 30 million parts need delivering to the right place at the right time, so that around 9,000 new vehicles can be produced at the group's 31 production locations worldwide.
- Outlook: The future production environment will offer plenty of opportunities for OEMs to improve efficiency and cut costs, but these will also prove challenging in terms of the investment required in new capital equipment and integrating increasingly complex systems on different platforms, while ultimately less manpower will be required, which could prove difficult to introduce in Germany's works council dominated production environment.
The BMW Group and Audi have been outlining their plans for future production techniques and associated logistical support operations, which have the potential to dramatically improve efficiency and lower cost bases through increased digitisation and computing power through the move to so-called Industry 4.0 production.
According to a company press release, BMW will base its future systems on a "fully-networked supply chain, autonomous transport robots and the use of existing vehicle information for the delivery process will make logistics even more flexible and efficient". Explaining how the company will evolve its production operations in the short and medium terms, Marco Prüglmeier, project manager for innovation and Industry 4.0 at BMW Group inbound logistics, said, "We have a clear vision of the future and are already exploring the technologies of tomorrow. We have identified potential for innovation in all phases of the logistics process, from inbound delivery of parts to our plants to outbound delivery of new vehicles to dealers all over the world."
In the future, BMW will work with the company's logistics providers to ensure there is so-called data transparency throughout the supply chain. This will allow the OEM and its logistics partners to track every single component that is being sent to the production line in order to hone just-in-time manufacturing techniques to the most efficient degree possible. An example of this kind of network offered by BMW is that if a components delivery truck is involved in an accident and a certain number and type of components are not delivered in time, the system will be able to compensate and work out alternative courses of action.
Additionally, component critical parts will be under so-called 'condition monitoring', which means that the component will be able to monitor itself and tell the production network whether it is damaged and a new batch of parts are required. In addition, as well as building autonomous vehicles for customers in the future, OEMs will increasingly use autonomous vehicles in their production network. BMW already has 10 self-driving Smart Transport Robots (STR) that are transporting components around the site at the Wackersdorf plant. These vehicles do not require floor-mounted induction loops for navigation and use pre-used batteries from the BMW i3, with the ability to transport up to 500 kilograms. For the remaining human component of Industry 4.0, BMW is looking to eventually provide workers with so-called 'Augmented reality data goggles'. These will help logistics staff tell line workers sorting parts where to find the right piece and where to place it. In addition, these goggles, through using artificial intelligence, are able to recognise different types of defects independently.
Meanwhile, Audi has been outlining its plans for Industry 4.0 and how production techniques are likely to evolve over the next two decades. The company says that it is looking at the potential for savings and efficiencies that the new digital production techniques can bring at a time when the company is being forced to look at more aggressive cost-savings as a result of the diesel emissions affair. In an Autocar report, Audi made a bold pronouncement by claiming the traditional automotive production line has had its day, with a major shift in the existing paradigm predicted in the next decade. In a statement, Audi said, "Audi is convinced that the assembly line has had its day, because as model diversity grows, the more complicated it becomes to master complexity in a rigid sequential process." The company will first introduce its first fully modular production system on the production of its subsidiary company Lamborghini's Urus model, which will begin in 2018.
With Audi leading Industry 4.0 techniques in an automotive context, the company is also modifying conventional production formats, with the push is being accelerated by the shift to electrified powertrains. For example, the A3 e-tron is manufactured on the same line as the conventional A3 with the help of a lightweight robot which screws the underfloor cladding on to the e-tron model and the conventional models completely independently, working alongside human production line workers. The use of the robot improves efficiency and the conventional A3 and the e-tron have different fixing points for the underbody protection which the robot detects.
Outlook and implications
As the automotive industry heads towards the biggest technology paradigm shift in more than a century in terms of the move to electromobility, connectivity and, eventually, fully autonomous driving, the way that cars are built will change in a similar fashion. Digitisation, and the potential offered by Industry 4.0, is immense in terms of advanced production techniques which will improve the efficiency of supply chains, and just-in-time production techniques. This in turn will allow OEMs to reduce head count over time and introduce even more robotisation into their production lines.
The key element of Industry 4.0 is connecting supply chains and logistics to enhanced robotisation through wireless data transfer which can keep track of every element of the production process and allow humans to work alongside robots in a more efficient and safer manner. Audi has already stated that it is moving ahead with systems where humans combine with specialist robot tools in tasks that are complex and fiddly, while automated production line component carrying robots are also being used more heavily.
The move towards Industry 4.0 certainly has a great potential, although the German OEMs will find it a tricky task to reduce headcount in a corresponding fashion given the power of the works councils in the country. However, with the Volkswagen passenger car brand set to announce a workforce reduction in the region of 25,000 today through early retirement in order to improve its cost-base in the wake of the emissions affair, this mechanism, over time, has the potential to allow the German OEMs to make full use of the transition to Industry 4.0 production techniques.
About this article
The above article is from IHS Automotive Same-Day Analysis of automotive news, events and trends, and is a deliverable of the World Markets Automotive Service. The service averages thirty stories per day and also provides competitor and country intelligence. Get a free trial.