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CASE STUDY Ford Engine Assembly Line Simulation Tool

A massive amount of planning and investment goes into every new engine that Ford Motor Company design. In today’s highly competitive climate, the speed to market for new products is crucial in maintaining competitive advantage. Ford have been using WITNESS since the mid-1980s to speed up the design of their engine manufacturing facilities. In that time many engine assembly lines have been simulated, with the model results being used to justify design decisions. Although the first impression is that one engine assembly line is much like another, there are usually sufficient differences to rule out the re-use of an existing model. Consequently a new WITNESS model has generally been constructed from first principles for each new engine assembly line. The drawback to this approach is the time it takes to build a brand new model and hence the delay in delivery of useful results. As the rate of innovation has accelerated within Ford, it has been important to ensure that the decision support tools they use also keep pace with developments. With this in mind, John Ladbrook (Ford European Simulation Technical Specialist) and Andy Emmerson (Lanner Senior Consultant) have created a flexible interface to WITNESS that allows models of engine assembly lines to be built automatically. Dubbed FAST (Ford Assembly Simulation Tool), this interface builds a WITNESS model of an engine assembly line from data contained within an Excel spreadsheet, without the user having to do anything in WITNESS other than press the "run" button.
The Ford Assembly Simulation Tool (FAST) builds a WITNESS model of an engine assembly line from data contained within an Excel spreadsheet, without the user having to do anything in WITNESS other than press the "run" button. Lanner Group Limited. The Oaks, Clews Road Redditch, Worcs, B98 7ST Phone: 01527 403400 Email: info@lanner.co.uk A utomotive Manufacturer Engine Line Planning

www.lanner.com

Rapid Simulation Development

Ford Motor Company