A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO ADVANCED MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING
Advanced manufacturing engineering, or AME, describes all necessary activities to ensure the manufacturability of the complete vehicle and consequently its systems and parts.
Some functions covered by AME include the definition of ideal joining sequences for a vehicle’s body work, and the joining techniques that should be used for it. It also covers the creation of accessibility studies to ensure that singular parts can be joined easily by either workers or machinery, and conducting ergonomic analyses to make sure that workers can consistently do their tasks without impairing either their health or their productivity.
In short, the key goal of AME is to ensure that individual parts fit into one serially produced vehicle in the most efficient way. A carefully laid out AME concept lowers the total time and cost requirements for serial production, while keeping the product quality consistently at the highest level. “Consistently” meaning that even if the same sequence has been repeated 99.999 times, at the 100.000th time, it is still performed as accurately as on day 1 of serial production.
AME and factory planning
It should be pointed out at this section, that AME concepts can only work if their requirements are also considered in the factory planning. The various experts planning the implementation of the necessary technologies into their factory concept also have to work under the frame set by the AME planners. Specifications, such as joining sequences, provide the basis of the future processes and plants necessary to serially produce a vehicle later on.
WHY ADVANCED MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING MUST BE PLANNED ON DAY 1
While production happens at a fairly late stage of a complete vehicle project, it needs to be taken into account during the development process in order to create a functional AME strategy.
The key to AME lies in consistent optimization
Vehicle planning should not be seen as a strictly linear task in the first place. Sure, production comes after development, but a good concept team concerns itself with every step of the way forward as early as possible, and then sets up all processes in parallel.
Considering AME and involving the production planners from day 1 on ensures that the production needs can be taken into account during the development phase. The team is involved early and coordinates with the various other teams on a regular, even daily, basis. Concepts are consistently examined changed and optimized, until step by step, the complete vehicle concept, including the AME strategy, takes shape.
This synchronous way of working saves time in the project. When AME is considered in parallel with other phases, its requirements and the expertise of its planners can influence and improve other fields, and vice versa.