The factory of the future

Tomorrow’s factories will need better processes, not just better robots.

The factory of the future will be different, with new processes and designs for building cars.

When people think of the automotive factory of the future, the first word that comes to mind is automation. They think of the “lights-out” factory that General Motors chief executive Roger Smith fantasised about in 1982 and Elon Musk talks about building today — plants so dominated by robots and machines that they don’t need lights to work.

There’s no doubt that the auto industry will continue to vigorously pursue automation solutions to lower the cost of producing cars. But the reality is that any major leap forward on cost and efficiency will no longer be possible through automation alone, since most of the tasks that can be automated in an automotive factory have already been tackled.

When the real factory of the future arrives, it won’t look different because we have automated the processes we use today. It will look different because we will have invented entirely new processes and designs for building cars.

Take the paint shop. Today, in most mature markets, it’s more than 90 per cent automated, yet it is still one of the most expensive and space-intensive sections of the factory. Robots, instead of ­humans, perform most tasks — applying protective corrosion coats, sealant, primer, base coat and clear coat to achieve the highly polished finishes we like on our cars — but the process itself is not that different from what it was 30 years ago.

For instance, in the BMW plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, processing a car through the paint shop is a 12-hour task, involving more than 100 robots and requiring the vehicle to travel 6km on the assembly line.

Clearly, there’s a better way to paint a car, but to make the whole operation cheaper and more ­efficient will require the development of a new process. Perhaps it will be the experimental approach of applying a single film over the car and then baking it on, as in a pottery kiln — a technique currently being tested in automotive research labs. Or maybe it will be 3D printing the entire car body in the colour a customer orders, completely eliminating the need for traditional paint and body shops.

Whatever the new process is, in order to make a significant difference in costs, it will have to involve more than simply adding a few more robots to the mix.

Today, two-thirds of automotive workers — the human ones — are in the general assembly section. Automating this section of the factory has proved more difficult because the customisation and complexity of today’s autos requires the flexibility that only humans can provide. Most factories are producing several models of cars simultaneously, and the mix of those models is often changing depending on demand. It would be expensive, if even possible, to reprogram robots and machines to be able to accommodate daily changes in factory production schedules.

There are also some tasks on the assembly line for which ­humans are better suited, such as handling all of the intricacies of installing and connecting a car’s wire harnesses — the nervous system of a vehicle. With a future car market expected to consist of electric and autonomous vehicles, these electrical systems will need to transmit more data faster and without error. The consequence for the assembly plant: more wires and connectors leading to longer, heavier wire harnesses.

For this operation to be automated would again require a new process — perhaps going wireless, with the electrical systems operating via electronic modules or even the cloud.

A new process will also be needed to assemble electric vehicles, since they involve the relatively uncomplicated installation of a battery pack and an electric motor. Simpler tasks may lend themselves better to robots, but several steps on the assembly line will also be bypassed. This leap forward will be accomplished through the development of a new process — in this case, electrifying the auto — not automating an old one.

New collaborative robots, or “co-bots”, are also adding a new twist. Instead of threatening the survival of humans on the ­assembly line by replacing them, co-bots enhance humans’ natural abilities. Ranging in size from two- to four-feet high, these automated assistants work with humans to perform tasks that may be slightly dangerous or repetitive, or that require a special agility to work in tight or hard-to-reach places, such as underneath vehicles.

For instance, Renault has deployed co-bots in a few plants to help build the powertrain by torquing bolts to a certain tolerance, a task that can be tedious for ­humans to do consistently and ­efficiently.

Co-bots can be relatively inexpensive, often costing under $US50,000 ($66,300) each. They are also simple to reprogram — workers on the assembly line can often handle the reprogramming on their own. This allows the bots to be re-tasked quickly, adding to their value and versatility.

Unlike much of the current robotic automation that must be kept fenced in, with safety signs warning employees to keep their distance, co-bots can perform their duties without hurting ­humans, since they are programmed to stop whenever there is an object in front of them. With their special swing arms, they can also retrieve certain small parts from bins for their human partners.

Another example of automation that enhances humans’ natural abilities is the exoskeleton. Workers wear these cyborg-esque contraptions to make them strong enough to lift heavy truck tyres or ease the stress on their bodies while performing repetitive overhead assembly tasks. These exoskeletons are becoming par­ticularly important as the average age of production workers rises above 40, which it has in the industrialised economies of the US, western Europe and Japan.

Smith’s dream of a lights-out factory has only been realised in a very few operations — robots building robots, for instance — and not in the automotive world. Instead, the road to the automotive factory of the future will likely be paved with human invention. While robots and automation will be part of the picture, the lights will stay on.

Ron Harbour is a senior partner and Jim Schmidt is a vice-president at management consulting firm Oliver Wyman.

Copyright 2018 Harvard Business School Publishing Corp. Distributed by the New York Times Syndicate.