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Increasing Flexibility and Productivity in Small Assembly Operations: A Case Study

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Advances in Sustainable and Competitive Manufacturing Systems

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering ((LNME))

Abstract

Despite the high production rates required in the automotive industry, some small components are being produced manually in peripheral countries where the labor costs are lower than in the middle of the Europe. When the production must be highly flexible, new challenges are placed and, in these cases, some companies adopt intensive labor processes. This work is based on an industrial demand in order to become an intensive labor process in intensive technology process, minimizing human intervention (without removing it), increasing productivity ensuring the quality, and maintaining the high flexibility already achieved in the assembly process of drive systems for automotive windscreen wiper. The equipment developed uses intensive technology through automation systems, needing an operator who is responsible by the initial feeding process. After that, all the process is automatic. The production cycle time is reduced from 11 to 7 s and the quality is ensured. The equipment is very flexible, allowing to assembly 20 different kinds of sets for the same purpose, changing just the gig where the main component is assembled.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thanks ISEP—Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto due to its support. The authors wish to thanks Ing. Elsa Vieira, Ing. Ricardo Macedo, and Dr. Manuela Cardoso from DELFINGEN PT—PORTO, S.A., for their collaboration and commitment in providing the necessary data when this project starts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, ISEP—Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, 4200-072, Porto, Portugal

    P. M. S. Nunes & F. J. G. Silva

Authors
  1. P. M. S. Nunes
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  2. F. J. G. Silva
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to F. J. G. Silva .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Universidade do Porto, Vitória, Portugal

    Américo Azevedo

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Nunes, P.M.S., Silva, F.J.G. (2013). Increasing Flexibility and Productivity in Small Assembly Operations: A Case Study. In: Azevedo, A. (eds) Advances in Sustainable and Competitive Manufacturing Systems. Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering. Springer, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00557-7_27

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00557-7_27

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-00556-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-00557-7

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