Optimizing assembly

“In a country like Germany, with its high wages, is it still possible to maintain labor-intensive assembly volumes in the long term?" Many companies are currently asking themselves this question. ROI, however, feels the question should instead be phrased: “What do the assembly designs of the future look like, where customer demands will be able to be optimally satisfied on a local level in the respective regional markets at optimal manufacturing costs and with the needed flexibility?”

The development of different assembly designs for high wage and low wage countries is an outdated approach. That applies also to the outsourcing of assembly volumes based solely on wage differences. This often results in complex, inflexible, and expensive supply chains that are no longer controllable..

Success lies in the development of efficient, highly flexible assembly systems that are also capable of manufacturing complex products, including those with many variations, at competitive costs. This objective applies both to series and to one-off production, whether in high wage or low wage countries.

The development of such assembly systems requires targeted application of methods for recognizing the actual value added and making full use of existing potentials for optimization and flexibility.

With ROM®, ROI’s operation sequence method, ROI Management Consultants has a tool that, on the basis of a product's parts list and with very little effort, enables assembly times to be ascertained in a manner that simulates an absolutely waste-free assembly system. In this way, before the start of design work, a time-management benchmark is defined for the product to be assembled, making possible a clear identification of potential.

When providing advice for product-specific development of the assembly system, ROI draws upon a best-practices toolkit, the solutions of which are guided by the following basic principles for efficient assembly:

• Clear separation of assembly and logistics
• Introduction of one-piece flow
• Flexible takt timing
• Optimal delimitation and integration of pre assembly and final assembly
• Reasonable automation, low-cost intelligent automation
• Pull principle and flexible retrofitting in parts supply
• Differentiated parts replenishment processes
• Modular, standardized, and use-neutral design of the assembly system and the workplace
• Team-oriented and capacity-flexible organizational designs

However, optimal assembly also means thinking and acting holistically, including taking into account aspects of relevance to manufacturing and assembly when designing the product and, as early as during the planning process, formulating the design for the corresponding assembly and logistics processes.

You can find an overview of our entire spectrum of services in this area under Lean Production.