Abstract
Keywords - Complexity Management, Product Complexity, Complexity Costs, Design for
Simplicity, Variant Management
Abstract - For the last 10 years, Complexity Management has been one of the focal areas for most Automobile Manufacturers. However, despite the high number of projects and initiatives in this area, the results are very limited: A total of 10 12 to 10 17 possible assembly combinations for todays automobiles is more the standard than the exception! This diversity is the result of the increasing variety within modules such as seats, rear view mirrors, carpet modules, steering wheels or even gear lever covers.
While there is no doubt that some variants are needed to satisfy different buyer groups, an even greater number of variants is simply engineering or technology driven and provides no benefits on the market side. In fact, a study in the automotive industry shows that up to 60% of product complexity in automobiles is not contributing to satisfy customer requirements.
Even though these variants do not provide market benefits they still cause complexity costs in almost all departments.
Product complexity usually becomes visible for the first time when the Material & Logistics department develops the assembly line of a new automobile and a number of innovative concepts have been developed to deal with it: Just in Time, Just in Sequence, Process Management, Quality Management, Six Sigma, etc.
While all of these concepts are good and necessary, they essentially try to cure the symptoms instead of killing the virus: All of these tools provide ways to better manage the high number of variants instead of actually avoiding them.
Volkswagen AG chose the latter approach when planning for the new Golf A5. In order to identify unnecessary module variants and to reduce them, following methodology was used:
- Creating visibility of currently planned diversity per module using specialized software.
- Identification of variants without contribution to market success.
- Development and evaluation of variant reduction scenarios.
- Presentation of suggested variant elimination to decision-making body.
This paper describes the application of the methodology using the example of the floor panel of the new Volkswagen Golf A5. The latest planning status for this module showed a total of
148 variants. Because of space limitations in the assembly area this high number of variants called for a just in time/just in sequence delivery to the assembly line. After going through the steps outlined above it was possible to reduce the number of variants to 18, allowing for cost reductions of more than 1.- per vehicle.