Workshop for Identifying Assembly Time Savings: An OEM Empirical Study

This paper presents the procedure and recommendations resulting from an original equipment manufacturer empirical study on an assembly time savings workshop. The focus of the workshop was to reduce the assembly time of an automotive vehicle by reverse engineering a vehicle currently in production and applying design for assembly guidelines. The workshop was conducted at the OEM´s research and development laboratory in Germany and required a collaborative effort between the US manufacturing plant and the German design group. The organization, equipment needed, and method used to conduct the assembly workshop are discussed in detail. The outcomes of the empirical study include assembly time reductions as well as best practices for conducting a time savings workshop. Specific details about assembly time and time reduction are not included in this paper due to the proprietary nature of the project.