Track: Modeling and Simulation

Abstract

The manufacturing industry successfully used the simulation modeling and digital engineering toolbox to improve the production efficiency. In this paper, development of automotive body shop layout design and the assembly processes is presented for a typical Body-in-White (BIW) vehicle.  The overall BIW assembly consists of four BIW major assembly lines. They are Underbody line, Body side Aperture lines left and right, Framing line and the Panel line.  A simulation model is developed depicting the body shop plant layout and processes to analyse the production output. This paper makes an earnest attempt to model the complete body shop processes using simulation software. The stations uptime and down time, conveyor speed and the path, process stations, process cycle times were used per the processes layout to predict the output.  The simulation model prediction results were compared with the typical production output from the plant.