Dynamic cycle times for adaptive manufacturing control in automotive flow shops

The automotive industry has to deal with an increasing complexity of production processes and various kinds of disturbances along the supply chain. This requires a higher level of flexibility through an intelligent production planning from the engineering phase. Today's manufacturing flexibility is mostly provided during the operational phase (so-called runtime) by methodologies for order re-scheduling and re-sequencing. The focus of this paper is a novel concept, which adds the intelligent production planning to these methodologies and uses the synergies of the holistic system. This approach enables flexible automated manufacturing processes by the dynamic use of machine capabilities during run-time. The paper shows in details how the adaption of operating speeds both in manufacturing and material handling processes leads to dynamic cycle times with maximized Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). This concept is based on so-called production variants defined and validated during the engineering phase. First results show stability and good response of the test system.