Reconfigurable Strategies for Manufacturing Setups to Confront Mass Customization Challenges

The manufacturing industry is distinguished by regionalization and individualization of products accompanied by varying customer demands, faster time to market, short innovation cycles and product life cycles. The introduction of new materials, new processes as well as struggle to achieve economic and efficient use of resources has raised complexities to achieve quick and optimal configuration in manufacturing systems. To resolve the complexities, the reconfiguration at different levels in the manufacturing system is presented by using three distinct examples. The first example refers to reconfigurable joining cell design for versatile joining of automotive subassemblies. Second example refers to strategy for quick reconfiguration of robots for precise machining applications. The third example elaborates fast calibration of monitoring system in joining processes to enable fast reconfiguration of sensors in commissioning as well as in the maintenance.