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The automotive industry is currently undergoing its most dramatic changes since the invention of the automobile. That's according to Eckart Mayer, president and CEO, Mercedes-Benz Taiwan, who spoke at this month’s inaugural TIMTOS Summit, themed Connecting to the Future and which was held in Taipei as an accompanying event to the TIMTOS exhibition, the second largest machine tool show in Asia. And during a subsequent panel session chaired by ARC Advisory Group, Mayer expanded on the German automotive company’s initiatives around Industrie 4.0 and made it clear that in the midst of landmark product innovations like electric cars and autonomous driving, Mercedes Benz also intends to be a leader in using digital technologies to transform its manufacturing capabilities and performance.
Let’s take a look at some of the things that Mercedes Benz Cars, a subsidiary of Daimler AG, is doing and plans to do in relation to Industrie 4.0. First of all, its definition of Industrie 4.0 is broad, going beyond core production operations to include R&D, procurement, sales & marketing, service, and new business. So for example, with Smart Development, digital crash tests, where the crash process and its impact are simulated on computer, are lowering costs and hastening time to market. Under Smart Sales is Mercedes Me, a one-stop portal for customers to connect with the brand. And with Smart Service, customers can avoid workshop visits and get online software updates for certain vehicle equipment.
But still, it’s the factory, under Smart Operations, which is the centerpiece of the company’s digitalization efforts and where the most interesting developments are taking place. For Mercedes-Benz, a smart factory is a place in which products, machines and the entire environment are networked together and also connected to the internet, to create Industrie 4.0’s confluence of digital and physical worlds. And it’s technology adopted to achieve several specific automotive manufacturing goals, including greater flexibility – to allow production to respond rapidly to market fluctuations and deliver increasingly customized vehicles; greater speed – simplified modification of production facilities to enable faster time-to-market; and greater efficiency – a completely digital process chain allows production facilities to be controlled from anywhere and constant inventory management.
As Eckart Mayer outlined to the TIMTOS Summit audience, Mercedes Benz has already implemented several Industrie 4.0 Smart Operations projects. One interesting area is that of human-robot collaboration (HRC). While robots in automotive plants are hardly new, HRC recognizes that that there are many assembly processes that can benefit by marrying the cognitive superiority of humans with the robot’s greater endurance and reliability. This also ties in with Industrie 4.0 viewed in the Mercedes world as something that has a strong focus on people, and certainly not all machines, technology, and lights-out factories.
An implemented HRC application is a front double-clutch transmission assembly. The traditional manual assembly process is complex and strenuous, requiring handling of a heavy workpiece and awkward manipulation to get the gears of the clutch plate 100 percent aligned. But with the latest generation of sensing robots, which can monitor their environment, the human operator and the robot work safely alongside each other without the need for guarding equipment. The robot handles the load and check for positional integrity. In another human-robot collaboration, at the Mercedes-Benz C-Class plant in Bremen, a robot now handles the physically demanding part of assembling a hybrid battery package into the car’s rear end. Again, the worker is right by the robot.
While we often hear of robots replacing workers, and now more recently of robots cooperating with workers, it’s rare to hear of workers replacing robots. But indeed, that’s the case for one Mercedes Benz Industrie 4.0 project involving positional calibration of head-up displays. After installation, the HUD has to be carefully adjusted to ensure the it’s exactly in the right viewable position for the driver. Previously on the Mercedes Benz assembly line, the car had to be parked in a very precise position before a robot arm entered the vehicle to adjust the head-up display position. But now, with the aid of augmented reality (AR) technology, an operator enters the vehicle and gets visual guidance on a tablet device on how to tilt the display to the correct position. Overturning the usual human-robot economics, the HUD calibration process is both faster and cheaper when performed by an operator assisted by appropriate technology.
An important aspect of Industrie 4.0 is a leap in the level of plant connectedness. Mercedes Benz now has the ability to connect all of its factories worldwide and get visibility right down to the sensor level. This means that a lead plant for compact cars, for example, can access data from other compact car plants and assist with any necessary troubleshooting or even reprogram robots. And it also enables concurrent rather than consecutive plant upgrades, as start-up teams no longer need to travel from one plant to another.
These are just some of the examples of Smart Operations projects undertaken by Mercedes Benz. Taken together with the other upstream and downstream (of production) aspects of the company’s Industrie 4.0 initiative, it’s evident the company has serious intent of advancing not only its products for the era of connected cars (the company’s latest E-Class 213 series already features digital solutions such as networked safety/assistance systems and semi-autonomous driving) and driverless vehicles, but also bringing digital technologies back into factories to boost its manufacturing prowess.
Let’s take a look at some of the things that Mercedes Benz Cars, a subsidiary of Daimler AG, is doing and plans to do in relation to Industrie 4.0. First of all, its definition of Industrie 4.0 is broad, going beyond core production operations to include R&D, procurement, sales & marketing, service, and new business. So for example, with Smart Development, digital crash tests, where the crash process and its impact are simulated on computer, are lowering costs and hastening time to market. Under Smart Sales is Mercedes Me, a one-stop portal for customers to connect with the brand. And with Smart Service, customers can avoid workshop visits and get online software updates for certain vehicle equipment.
But still, it’s the factory, under Smart Operations, which is the centerpiece of the company’s digitalization efforts and where the most interesting developments are taking place. For Mercedes-Benz, a smart factory is a place in which products, machines and the entire environment are networked together and also connected to the internet, to create Industrie 4.0’s confluence of digital and physical worlds. And it’s technology adopted to achieve several specific automotive manufacturing goals, including greater flexibility – to allow production to respond rapidly to market fluctuations and deliver increasingly customized vehicles; greater speed – simplified modification of production facilities to enable faster time-to-market; and greater efficiency – a completely digital process chain allows production facilities to be controlled from anywhere and constant inventory management.
As Eckart Mayer outlined to the TIMTOS Summit audience, Mercedes Benz has already implemented several Industrie 4.0 Smart Operations projects. One interesting area is that of human-robot collaboration (HRC). While robots in automotive plants are hardly new, HRC recognizes that that there are many assembly processes that can benefit by marrying the cognitive superiority of humans with the robot’s greater endurance and reliability. This also ties in with Industrie 4.0 viewed in the Mercedes world as something that has a strong focus on people, and certainly not all machines, technology, and lights-out factories.
An implemented HRC application is a front double-clutch transmission assembly. The traditional manual assembly process is complex and strenuous, requiring handling of a heavy workpiece and awkward manipulation to get the gears of the clutch plate 100 percent aligned. But with the latest generation of sensing robots, which can monitor their environment, the human operator and the robot work safely alongside each other without the need for guarding equipment. The robot handles the load and check for positional integrity. In another human-robot collaboration, at the Mercedes-Benz C-Class plant in Bremen, a robot now handles the physically demanding part of assembling a hybrid battery package into the car’s rear end. Again, the worker is right by the robot.
While we often hear of robots replacing workers, and now more recently of robots cooperating with workers, it’s rare to hear of workers replacing robots. But indeed, that’s the case for one Mercedes Benz Industrie 4.0 project involving positional calibration of head-up displays. After installation, the HUD has to be carefully adjusted to ensure the it’s exactly in the right viewable position for the driver. Previously on the Mercedes Benz assembly line, the car had to be parked in a very precise position before a robot arm entered the vehicle to adjust the head-up display position. But now, with the aid of augmented reality (AR) technology, an operator enters the vehicle and gets visual guidance on a tablet device on how to tilt the display to the correct position. Overturning the usual human-robot economics, the HUD calibration process is both faster and cheaper when performed by an operator assisted by appropriate technology.
An important aspect of Industrie 4.0 is a leap in the level of plant connectedness. Mercedes Benz now has the ability to connect all of its factories worldwide and get visibility right down to the sensor level. This means that a lead plant for compact cars, for example, can access data from other compact car plants and assist with any necessary troubleshooting or even reprogram robots. And it also enables concurrent rather than consecutive plant upgrades, as start-up teams no longer need to travel from one plant to another.
These are just some of the examples of Smart Operations projects undertaken by Mercedes Benz. Taken together with the other upstream and downstream (of production) aspects of the company’s Industrie 4.0 initiative, it’s evident the company has serious intent of advancing not only its products for the era of connected cars (the company’s latest E-Class 213 series already features digital solutions such as networked safety/assistance systems and semi-autonomous driving) and driverless vehicles, but also bringing digital technologies back into factories to boost its manufacturing prowess.