Smart Process for Automated Engineering Tasks : A case study at Volvo Group Trucks Operations

Abstract: Volvo Group Trucks Operations is a subordinate organization to the Volvo Group concern, which is one of the world's largest manufactures of trucks, buses, construction equipment, marine and industrial engines. Volvo Group Trucks Operations organization encompasses all production of the Volvo Group’s engines and transmissions as well as all production of Trucks. Volvo Group Trucks Operations is looking into digitize the methods utilized for information handling within their assembly plant in Tuve, Sweden, and this thesis project part in the digitization process.  The currently used assembly work instructions at the assembly plant in Tuve are printed on paper and contains excessive amounts of information that makes it challenging for the assembly operators to consume the work instructions efficiently. Therefore, Volvo Group Truck Operations want look into the possibility to introduce dynamically adjustable and digital work instructions that could be tailor fitted to an operator's experience level and presented with smart technologies. The project is divided into two parts where the first part was assigned to identify the information need for smart process capable of generating dynamic digital work instructions and the second part to research how this information need could be satisfied with currently used simulation tools. The information needs analyses showed that the smart process needs to be divided into two sub-processes, one for gathering and processing production specific data into a fully detailed work instruction and the other one for filtering the fully detailed work instruction to tailor fit an operator independent of their skill level within assembly work. A framework containing three information aspects is stated to describe the information need for the smart process. These information aspects are Inputs, Smart process and Outputs. The information aspects are then further broken down into five required information areas that is important for the smart process functionality. The required information areas are Data, Attributes, Inputs, Instruction and Information structure and Instruction consummation. When combining the results for the information aspects and the required information areas, the framework for the smart process needed to be able to generate dynamic digital work instruction could be stated. Using the simulation software IPS IMMA to simulate a generic assembly demo case to generate and export production specific data in the human readable XML coding language showed that it is possible to satisfy the framework for the smart process. However, comparing the simulated data with the information need for the framework resulted in the discovery that the IPS IMMA version used in the project, PMTS event exporter, withholds information regarding the assembly work. The generated data provides information regarding movement distances, movement times and grip types when interacting with work objects. For the smart process to be able to generate fully detailed instructions it needs to be supplied with additional information regarding the work objects in action and directions of movements conducted during the assembly work. Despite this withhold of information from the export data, it would still be possible to fully satisfy the framework for the smart process. All the missing information is contained within the IPS IMMA hence the software needs an update that adds the additional information to the data export.