Could Cars Move Themselves Down Assembly Lines in the Near Future?

The arrival of autonomous driving know-how may fully reimagine car meeting crops. Seog-Chan Oh, a physician of engineering and workers researcher at General Motors, laid out a imaginative and prescient of a possible future in automotive manufacturing. This future would come with really personalised autos, city micro-factories and autos autonomously guiding themselves down the meeting line.

Together with interchangeable components, meeting line manufacturing is without doubt one of the most transformative ideas extensively adopted throughout the Industrial Revolution. The method was first launched into the automotive trade in 1901 by Ransom Olds, permitting for the mass manufacturing of vehicles. The Ford Motor Firm then designed a automobile across the course of, the Mannequin T, the primary car inexpensive for the American center class. Toyota would implement its lean manufacturing system to additional optimize the method within the second half of the twentieth century. It’s truthful to say the trendy world would look drastically completely different with out the mass manufacturing of motor autos.

In an article written by Dr. Oh for Assembly, he notes the 4 main components of auto manufacturing: press store, physique store, paint store and closing meeting. The primary three components are almost absolutely automated already. He defined that the complexities of ultimate meeting make it troublesome to automate, however Oh isn’t aiming to automate closing meeting.

Dr. Oh proposes permitting closing meeting to be low-volume and extremely individualized by decoupling it from the remainder of the manufacturing course of. Meeting would happen at micro-factories in city areas, a lot nearer to the purpose of sale. Oh additionally explains, “For mass individualization, city meeting crops should undertake asynchronous manufacturing methods. They should be designed for optimum flexibility and minimal capital funding.”

He mentions electrical autos could be good for this type of producing as a result of their fewer parts cut back the complexity of meeting. Extra importantly, EVs may propel themselves throughout the meeting course of, eradicating the necessity for a conveyor belt. Amenities may very well be a lot smaller with out conveyor belts, permitting for development in city areas.

The 2 options that may be very important to city closing meeting are both the VaaC (car as a conveyor) system or the AMR (autonomous cell robotic) system. VaaC would see a sensor array skid briefly hooked up to the car in manufacturing. The skid would take management of the car and information it across the plant. AMR would see all the car raised atop an autonomous robotic, which might be powered by the car itself.

Seog-Chan Oh listed a number of present examples of city car manufacturing, akin to Volkswagen’s e-Golf meeting plant in Dresden, Germany. Nonetheless, there is no such thing as a manufacturing facility just like the imaginative and prescient he described but. Do you assume we may see a future the place a automobile is assembled on the dealership the place you ordered it?