A Quality Flow Model in Battery Manufacturing Systems for Electric Vehicles

Improving quality in large volume battery manufacturing systems for hybrid and electric vehicles is of significant importance. In this paper, we present a flow model to analyze and improve product quality in electrical vehicle battery assembly lines with 100% inspections and repairs for defective parts. Specifically, a battery assembly line consisting of multiple inspection stations is considered. After each inspection, defective parts will be repaired and sent back to the line. A quality flow model is introduced to analyze quality propagations along the battery production line. Analytical expressions of final product quality are derived and structural properties, such as monotonicity and sensitivities, are investigated. A bottleneck identification and mitigation method is introduced to improve quality performance. Finally, a case study is presented to illustrate the applicability of the method.