Proven technologies and processes are explored in this examination of modern automotive manufacturing. Fundamentals and applications, as well as new advances are discussed as the author bridges the gap between academic research and industrial practice. Having held positions as both a University Professor and as a Lead Engineering Specialist in industry, the author presents a concise understanding that reflects both technical and managerial perspectives with the aim of providing improvement through practical methods. Each chapter includes review questions and research topics, and, in addition, analysis problems are often included that comprehensively address: • Automotive Industry and Competition • Manufacturing Operations • Joining and Paint Processes • Production Operations and Quality Management • Performance Improvement Directly extracted and summarized from automotive manufacturing practices, this book serves as a fundamental manual. The subject is complemented by the author’s second book, Manufacturing System and Process Development for Vehicle Assembly, which provides even greater depth to the subject of modern automotive manufacturing.

The evolution and execution of automotive manufacturing are explored in this fundamental manual. It is an excellent reference for entry level manufacturing engineers and also serves as a training guide for nonmanufacturing professionals. The book covers the major areas of vehicle assembly manufacturing and addresses common approaches and procedures of the development process. Having held positions as both a University Professor and as a Lead Engineering Specialist in industry, the author draws on his experience in both theory and application to fill the gap between academic research and industrial practices. This concisely written, comprehensive review discusses the sophisticated principles and concepts of automotive manufacturing from development to applications and includes: 250 illustrations and 90 tables. End-of-chapter review questions. Research topics for in-depth case studies, literature reviews, and/or course projects. Analytical problems for additional practice. Directly extracted and summarized from automotive manufacturing practices, this book serves as an essential manual. The subject is complemented by the author’s first book, Automotive Vehicle Assembly Processes and Operations Management, which provides even greater depth to the complex endeavor of modern automotive manufacturing.

A comprehensive and dedicated guide to automotive production lines, The Automotive Body Manufacturing Systems and Processes addresses automotive body processes from the stamping operations through the final assembly activities. To begin, it discusses current metal forming practices, including stamping engineering, die development, and dimensional validation, and new innovations in metal forming, such as folding based forming, super-plastic, and hydro forming technologies. The first section also explains details of automotive spot welding (welding lobes), arc welding, and adhesive bonding, in addition to flexible fixturing systems and welding robotic cells. Guiding readers through each stage in the process of automotive painting, including the calculations needed to compute the number of applicators and paint consumption based on vehicle dimensions and demand, along with the final assembly and automotive mechanical fastening strategies, the book's systematic coverage is unique. The second module of the book focuses on the layout strategies of the automotive production line. A discussion of automotive aggregate planning and master production scheduling ensures that the reader is familiar with operational aspects. The book also reviews the energy emissions and expenditures of automotive production processes and proposes new technical solutions to reduce environmental impact. Provides extensive technical coverage of automotive production processes, discussing flexible stamping, welding and painting lines Gives complete information on automotive production costing as well as the supplier selection process Covers systems from the operational perspective, describing the aggregate and master production planning Details technical aspects of flexible automotive manufacturing lines Methodically discusses the layout and location strategies of automotive manufacturing systems to encompass the structural elements Features topic-related questions with answers on a companion website

This volume of the series ARENA2036 compiles the outcomes of the first Stuttgart Conference on Automotive Production (SCAP2020). It contains peer-reviewed contributions from a theoretical as well as practical vantage point and is topically structured according to the following four sections: It discusses (I) Novel Approaches for Efficient Production and Assembly Planning, (II) Smart Production Systems and Data Services, (III) Advances in Manufacturing Processes and Materials, and (IV) New Concepts for Autonomous, Collaborative Intralogistics. Given the restrictive circumstances of 2020, the conference was held as a fully digital event divided into two parts. It opened with a pre-week, allowing everyone to peruse the scientific contributions at their own pace, followed by a two-day live event that enabled experts from the sciences and the industry to engage in various discussions. The conference has proven itself as an insightful forum that allowed for an expertly exchange regarding the pivotal Advances in Automotive Production and Technology.

In January 2000, Mercedes-Benz started to implement the Mercedes-Benz Prod- tion System (MPS) throughout its world-wide passenger car plants. This event is exemplary of a trend within the automotive industry: the creation and introduction of company-specific standardised production systems. It gradually emerged with the introduction of the Chrysler Operating System (COS) in the mid-1990s and represents a distinct step in the process towards implementing the universal pr- ciples of lean thinking as propagated by the MIT-study. For the academic field of industrial sociology and labour policy, the emergence of this trend seems to mark a new stage in the evolution of the debate about production systems in the auto- tive industry (Jürgens 2002:2), particularly as it seems to undermine the stand of the critics of the one-best way model (Boyer and Freyssenet 1995). The introduction of company-level standardised production systems marks the starting point of the present study. At the core of it is a case study about the M- cedes Benz Production System (MPS).

From the Model T to today's "lean manufacturing": the assembly line as crucial, yet controversial, agent of social and economic transformation. The mechanized assembly line was invented in 1913 and has been in continuous operation ever since. It is the most familiar form of mass production. Both praised as a boon to workers and condemned for exploiting them, it has been celebrated and satirized. (We can still picture Chaplin's little tramp trying to keep up with a factory conveyor belt.) In America's Assembly Line, David Nye examines the industrial innovation that made the United States productive and wealthy in the twentieth century. The assembly line—developed at the Ford Motor Company in 1913 for the mass production of Model Ts—first created and then served an expanding mass market. It also transformed industrial labor. By 1980, Japan had reinvented the assembly line as a system of “lean manufacturing”; American industry reluctantly adopted the new approach. Nye describes this evolution and the new global landscape of increasingly automated factories, with fewer industrial jobs in America and questionable working conditions in developing countries. A century after Ford's pioneering innovation, the assembly line continues to evolve toward more sustainable manufacturing.

Practical Fabrication and Assembly Techniques guides enthusiasts through the most essential processes for assembling a high-performance engine, car, or motorcycle. Tasks like fabricating mounts for fuel pumps or ignition boxes, selecting fasteners and hardware for securing components, and plumbing brake and fuel systems are among the many topics covered.

In 2018 almost half of all vehicles made in North America were produced at foreign-owned plants, and the sector was on track to monopolize the market. Despite this, the industry has been overlooked compared with its domestic counterpart, both in scholarship and popular memory. Redressing this neglect, America’s Other Automakers provides a new history of the foreignowned auto sector, the first to extensively draw on archival sources and to articulate the human agency of participants, including workers, managers, and industry recruiters. Timothy J. Minchin challenges the view that the industry’s growth primarily reflected incentives, stressing human agency and the complexity of individual stories instead. Deeply human in its approach, the book also explores the industry’s impact on grassroots communities, showing that it had more costs than supporters acknowledged. Drawing on a wide range of primary and secondary sources, America’s Other Automakers uncovers significant tensions over unionization, reports of discriminatory hiring, and unease about the industry’s rapid growth, critically exploring seven large assembly facilities and their impact on the communities in which they were built.

This book has proved its worth over the years as a text for courses in Production Management at the Faculty of Automotive Engineering in Turin, Italy, but deserves a wider audience as it presents a compendium of basics on Industrial Management, since it covers all major topics required. It treats all subjects from product development and “make or buy”-decision strategies to the manufacturing systems setting and management through analysis of the main resources needed in production and finally exploring the supply chain management and the procurement techniques. The very last chapter recapitulates the previous ones by analysing key management indicators to pursue the value creation that is the real purpose of every industrial enterprise. As an appendix, a specific chapter is dedicated to the basics of production management where all main relevant definitions, techniques and criteria are treated, including some numerical examples, in order to provide an adequate foundation for understanding the other chapters. This book will be of use not only to Automotive Engineering students but a wide range of readers who wish to gain insight in the world of automotive engineering and the automotive industry in general.