Abstract
Keywords
Prototype manufacturing, process optimization, program management, resource management,
Multi Project Database
Abstract
Today, process-oriented volume production and, above all, product development in the automotive industry is no longer considered to be a trendy approach to management, but is a well-proven technique to develop and manufacture products faster, more efficiently and at minimized costs. Complete enterprises adapt their organization structure to the actual value-adding processes in order to maximize customer orientation, effectiveness, efficiency, quality, flexibility and hence their competitiveness.
This lecture describes such a process-controlled organization on the basis of the structure and process organization of MAGNA STEYR Fahrzeugtechniks Prototype and Low-volume
Production in Graz. The experience made so far shows that there are opportunities and advantages, but also problems and drawbacks brought about by such changes in the structure.
It is imperative to divide the complete process into modules. The management of these process chain links is a very sophisticated task as regards project quotations, project planning, project execution including order management and aspects of know-how management and systematic know-how acquisition. Meeting all these demands calls for an ingenious concept to integrate the standardized tasks as well as the necessary flexibility in the presence of changing general conditions the latter being a core competence for production facility. In organizing the prototype workflow according to processes, a real frontloading for volume production processes and tooling development can be achieved. Proactive management rules can be met by taking the whole product development process into consideration. The approach on hand tries to come up to this task.