An assembly line that finally keeps up with the pace
A powertrain assembly workshop was running on independent islands. Within a few months, and without ever stopping production, it became a synchronized line designed with the operators.
Study a similar needPowertrain assembly
+35%
line throughput
−30%
floor space used
−55%
work-in-progress between stations
Orders of magnitude observed on the project.
The challenge
On the shop floor, each workstation operated like its own little workshop. Components waited in bins between stations, sometimes for days, and operators spent a chunk of their day fetching parts instead of assembling.
The result: saturated floor space, work-in-progress hard to track, throughput plateauing. And the smallest new product variant forced everyone to manually rearrange everything, discouraging change.
Our response
Rather than adding workstations, our design office reworked the whole flow end-to-end, with the production teams.
Synchronized layout: workstations follow the actual assembly order, with no breaks.
Custom tubular workstations, fully reconfigurable when a product variant changes.
FIFO dynamic racks bringing components within reach, exactly when needed.
Gradual rollout, station by station, without ever stopping current production.
Worktop heights and reach distances set directly with the operators.
« We stopped chasing parts. The operators took back ownership of their station, and throughput followed naturally. »
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