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Engineering car assembly line essay
Birth of the automotive industry
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The Value of the Assembly Line in Automobile Manufacture
In 1913, an innovation in automobile manufacture was born when Ford Motors experimented with winches and ropes to pull the chassis down a line while the assemblers stood in one place with their parts piles. The old process where workers moved in teams down the line, receiving their car parts from "parts runners" at each chassis as they arrived, was replaced by the automated assembly line, thus radically reducing by about 70 percent the original 17-hour labor input in the traditional moving team system. Since then, cars began to be produced with increasing flexibility and economy.
The State-of-the-Art BMW Plant in Leipzig
The newly-opened manufacturing plant of BMW in Leipzig, Germany boasts of a high-tech assembly line that transports the chassis from one production station to another with the speed and ease that carries with it the promise of producing the planned capacity of 650 BMW vehicles per day by 2007. Located in three buildings arranged in a circle around the open-structure central building, the assembly line production is clearly visible to all employees. This pioneering architecture not only aims to promote transparency and communication among employees, but also reflects a plant-within-a-plant principle in which the operations are divided into three smaller operating units with focused objectives, namely, (1) the construction of the main framework, (2) the paint job, and (3) the assembly of other remaining car parts.
As far as operations are concerned, the site of the youngest BMW plant offers several advantages: accessibility (geographical center of Germany) from the BMW Group's existing supplier network; abundance in potential employees (the region has...
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...be increased within just a few months. This forward-looking, visionary approach serves as added proof that the most modern BMW plant had built on all the automotive engineering know-how accumulated by the company in all its 75 years of experience.
Bibliography
"A Plant takes Shape." BMW Website. 2004. April 16, 2005. .
"Automotive History The Assembly Line." Ideafinder.com. 2004. April 15, 2005. .
BMW Virtual Plant Tour. BMW Website. 2004. April 15, 2005.
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Boston, William. "Off the Dole and On the Assembly Line." Business Week Website October 4, 2004, issue 3902. April 15, 2005. .
Reid, Sanders. "Process Selection" and "Capacity Planning and Facility Location." Operations Management (A Student Companion). 2004. April 15, 2005. .
Vasilash, Gary S. "Advances in Putting Things Together." Automotive Design and Production.com. March 2003. April 15, 2005. .
Vonderembse, M.A. & White, G. P. (2013). Operations Management. San Diego, Ca: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
Rivethead is an account of the entire life of Author Ben Hamper, from his long family lineage of “shoprats” and his catholic school upbringing to his numerous different positions on the General Motors assembly line and his equally numerous lay-offs from the GM Truck & Bus Division. Unfortunately the many years of back breaking labor combined with Hampers own personal demons led him to check into an outpatient mental facility (at the time of the completion of this book) where he learns daily to cope with his many years of mental anguish. Rivethead is a social commentary on industrial America, assembly line work , and the auto industry. This essay, however, will focus on the more specific aspects Hamper considers, such as the monotony required on a (then) modern assembly line, the relationship and hierarchy among workers and their interaction with management as well as both collective and individual responses to work and job satisfaction (or lack there of).
In the reading I chose, "Some Lessons from The Assembly Line", by Andrew Braaksma, is about a college student who in the summer time works for a factory all day long. To me, this reading is about a man maybe in his 20 's gaining great work experience during his summer breaks while also saving money. He also uses his work experiences in his college assignments, his knowledge from learning real life experiences at work. My opinion about this reading is that it is very informative. He is learning lessons and learning how to apply them to his school work. For Andrew, working in a factory seems like the best option, he saves money while at the same time, gaining very valuable experiences. He loves his school, and when he returns, he is so relieved to be back. He has been in a factory all summer while other classmates take it easy with small part time jobs. The articles theme of "Some Lessons from The Assembly Line" is to help inform people about how important education can be because he compares college life and work life, how he learns new experiences at work, and how much he appreciates being able to attend school.
Besides the dissimilarities in their situation though they form an unexpected collaboration that was formed on mutual interest in automotive and engineering. Surprisingly, their association continued for only six years, they formed a car acknowledged as the elite car in the world.
Eli Whitney is thought to be the establishing father of this procedure with his concept of interchangeable parts. Later on in the 1900s, Henry Ford presented the thought of the assembly line, which quickly created vehicles. From this, there have been more noteworthy progressions in innovation which have prompted quicker generation times and decrease of ineffectual materials. The
The assembly line allowed to make products quickly and affordable( "Henry Ford Gale”). The assembly line is a system moving items past workers who each assemble a particular part for the vehicle being manufactured ("Henry Ford Gale”). The assembly line made it easier manufacturing vehicles because only one person had to focus on one job. Vehicles became produced a lot faster than they had in previous years because of the assembly line was so efficient. The assembly line cut completion time of one vehicle's chassis assembly in half ( “Ford's Assembly Line Turns 100”).Before the assembly line it would have taken 12 to produce on vehicle, with the use of the assembly line it only took six hours to manufacture one vehicle ( “Ford's Assembly Line Turns 100”). The engine assembly was also done more quickly. Engine assembly originally took ten hours to assemble one engine. Due to the assembly line it only took four hours to assemble one engine ( “Ford's Assembly Line Turns 100”). With the success of the assembly from 1908 to1916 the Ford Motor Company had produced one million Model
The industry forces workers to toil long hours for minimum wage the adopted assembly line method, and has played a key role in keeping ...
The plans received approval from Ford’s Board of Directors in January 1969. The 1971 Ford Pinto went into production on September 11, 1970 as a “carefree little American car.” The entire product development schedule had been completed in only 25 months—a record at the time and, forty years later, is still considered a fast production schedule. The shorter product development schedule was made possible by overlapping the machine tooling process with product development, which meant that any design changes could require costly and time-consuming changes in machine tooling. Tooling of assembly-line machines typically took about 18
In the present paper, the company Robert Bosch GmbH will be presented. The target of this paper is to give a broad overview of the company’s structure and to analyse its current situation and strategy.
Spatz, J., & Nennenkamp, P. (2002, January). Globalization of the automotive industry-traditional locations under pressure. Retrieved January 14, 2012, from http://www.uni-kiel.de/ifw/pub/kap/2002/kap1093.pdf
Its objective is to integrate people, process, and technology. Toytoa’s product development procedure is essentially different from a manufacturing process. Its backbone is not visible, but knowledge and information which are untouchable. The product development’s cycle time is much longer than hours. It usually takes weeks or even months. The production chains are non-linear and multi-directional. Workers are no longer manufacturing workers but specialists with high diverse technology. This product development strategy is viable for Toyota. This is because this strategy does help Toyota to prolong the life cycle of current product. For instance, Toyota Camry is a very successful current product which is prolonged its life. Camry has been made since 1980s. Camry is set at an middle-high level of family veichle. After 30 years development, Camry is still very famous all over the world. This cannot be separeted by Toyota’s successful product development strategy. One of the key features of the Toyota product development system is functional engineering managers. They are primarily teachers in the Toyota system, who are the most technically competent engineers, with the highest levels of experience. Toyota’s management group is consist of high educated experts. They were all engineers and their technical excellence is very famous. But recently, Toyota’s product development system does not work very well. In
BMW- differentiation strategy, high price, breadth of product line is moderate, known for their cars being in the shop constantly and high maintenance bills.
The global company Mercedes-Benz is considered one of the most successful and well-known automotive companies worldwide. Since 1886, the company’s founders Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz made history with the invention of the automobile, including the Daimler Group, which is one the biggest producers of premium cars and the world’s biggest manufacturer of commercial vehicles globally (Daimler, 2013). Their main focus is innovation, safety, technology, style, brand image, expansion, and superior automobiles by offering the best of the best to consumers worldwide. The brand’s philosophy is to continuously create radically new products to advance the cause of human mobility. It is also the number one luxury brand in the United States and Germany while continuously expanding in China and Russia as well (Interbrand, 2013). Mercedes-Benz has a great selection on divisions such as cars, trucks, vans, buses, and financial services offered to any consumer or business. Their global reach has increased tremendously by including production facilities in 17 countries on five continents and having 93 locations worldwide. As a pioneer of automotive engineering, their strategy is to continue the same pioneer role with the ongoing development of mobility, especially in the areas of safety and sustainability (Daimler, 2013). It is very essential for the company to focus on consumers’ needs and their highly well known brand in a competitive global economy. That is why the company Mercedes-Benz releases a brand new model every year to stay on top of its competitors by improving previous models. Some strategies practiced are global marketing, global product development, global product pricing, global advertising, global distribution, an...
Market Segmentation, Positioning and targeting for BMW 1.1 Introduction This report aims to examine the market segmentation, positioning and targeting of BMW (automobile company). BMW will be examined giving information about the company and where it is now and any recommendations that we feel are appropriate. 1.2 BMW Company Profile BMW was formed in 1917, from the merger of two small aero engine makers. Their famous blue and white symbol stems from the colours of the Bavarian Luftwaffe and is said to resemble the view of the one of their plane through a propeller. BMW is renowned for its sporty, sophisticated & luxury image which has been built up since the 1970's with many motor sport victories ranging from Touring Car to Formula 1.