Digitalization in Manufacturing Assembly Lines

Trent Randles, Manufacturing Engineering Manager, BorgWarner Inc.

There’s a lot of talk about digital technologies in manufacturing these days, such as digital twins, digital threads and augmented reality. All these things can be powerful tools in decision making for manufacturers but it must be understood implementing these tools is not a project or a series of projects, it’s a journey that requires an organized structure to be followed and buy-in from top management to the production floor. At a previous Tier one automotive supplier I worked for, I  noticed an improvement could be made to the design process, we used to design assembly lines for  new vehicles.

We used spreadsheets to map out a high-level view of the assembly process, estimated cycle times for each task based on previous assembly lines and from there we wrote the  specifications for a vendor to quote building the new assembly line. After several occasions where I  had to redesign and rearrange assembly lines after their initial installment I thought

“I know there is  a way to design these lines and work out these issues before the equipment is built”. 

That’s the  point in my career where I started down the digital technology journey. Through my experiences of  building digital twins, utilizing augmented reality, and automating communication flows of data I  learned implementing digital technologies are much more than executing a project, it’s a journey  that requires a structured approach and company culture change that starts at the top.  

" With a clear action plan with target dates, champions assigned to tasks and a leader to drive the actions your digital technology initiative will fail to launch because no one is being held accountable "

The framework required to successfully plan, launch, and sustain a digital technology tool is vision, incentives, skills, resources, and an action plan. Whether you are a leader tasking your team with  this initiative or you’re proposing this initiative to your leaders, the foundational elements are the  same. Vision is the starting point. Defining this element will give a clear picture of the goal and  expectations once implemented.

A poorly defined vision creates confusion so defining this element  is paramount to the success of your digital technology journey. Once the rest of the elements are  defined, this element becomes the objective. Incentives are the next element to define.

Answering everyone’s’ question of ‘why’ paves the way through the first major obstacle. For leaders tasking an  initiative to their team, this justifies their time and effort to work on the task. For someone who’s  proposing an initiative to their leaders, this justifies the company’s resources to be dedicated to the  digital technology implementation. Without the incentives being clearly defined, both scenarios will  face resistance.
 

Once the vision and incentives have been defined, the skills element is next.  Identifying the right skill sets is critical to success because assigning someone or a team of people to  implement your digital technology who doesn’t have the right skills will cause anxiety for the individual or team of people which will in turn prevent your initiative from either launching or being  sustainable. Resources go right along with skills. If you put people in place with the right skills sets  but don’t give them the tools they need to be successful; this causes frustration. Again, this will  prevent your initiative from either launching or being sustainable.

The last element and equally as  important as the other four  is an action plan with target dates, champions to complete the tasks and a leader to drive the action plan. Defining vision, incentives, skills, and resources is just talk.  Completing tasks on the action plan is where real change beings to happen. With a clear action plan  with target dates, champions assigned to tasks and a leader to drive the actions your digital technology initiative will fail to launch because no one is being held accountable.