A major automotive OEM was facing significant challenges due to a high turnover rate, necessitating the training of approximately 100 new assembly workers each month. The existing training methods were time-consuming and costly, and the lack of effective training opportunities was leading to defects on the production line. The Director of Quality Engineering sought a solution to objectively assess and enhance the training process, particularly for their “Continuous Work” concept, where workers need to master a wide range of tasks within a single production cycle.
The automotive OEM needed a more efficient and effective way to train new workers because of the high turnover rate. Due to the high turnover rate, approximately 30 new workers needed training per week. The automotive OEM needed a more efficient and effective way to train these new workers.
Another major challenge was workers’ performance. In a typical automobile factory, each worker focuses on specific processes for shorter durations around 50-100 sec per cycle. However, this OEM manufacturer has been trying to implement the ‘Continuous Work’ concept in the factory, which takes significantly longer than the traditional approach at 300-500 sec per cycle.
While “Continuous Work” offers benefits like eliminating waiting time and improving craftsmanship, the primary challenge was training. Workers had to learn a wider range of tasks, and the high turnover rate made it difficult for the team to justify the ‘Continuous Work’ implementation.
The company implemented Assembly Copilot to address these challenges. The software automatically detected finished and unfinished tasks to evaluate efficiency. It also calculated the time spent on each task to quantify each worker’s mastery. The trainee’s performance was compared to MOST (Maynard Operation Sequence Technique) standard time to identify workers’ weak points. These weak points were then targeted for intensive retraining with a skilled worker, rather than requiring the new workers to repeat the entire process. Adopting this approach allowed for more focused and efficient training.
The automotive OEM conducted a comparative study to verify the effectiveness of Assembly Copilot. The study focused on the assembly process for a Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) Intelligent Power Unit (IPU), with a total work time of 300 seconds, aligning with their “Continuous Work” concept. The study was conducted on six workers divided into two groups of three. One group trained with the assistance of Assembly Copilot, while the other group followed the traditional training approach.
The goal was to determine whether trainees could meet the desired takt time within a two-hour training period.
The deployment of Assembly Copilot led to a dramatic improvement in the training process. In a study conducted by the Lead Quality Engineer, the three workers trained with Assembly Copilot were able to complete the assembly process correctly within the desired takt time (300 seconds) after just two hours of training. In contrast, only one of three workers trained using the traditional method achieved the same result in the same time frame, and that worker had prior experience in a related process. The OEM concluded that Assembly Copilot improved the efficiency of their training process by 300%. As a result, the company has now adopted Assembly Copilot’s video-based training as a scalable solution across their operations.
Operating in a high-volume manufacturing sector, a major automotive OEM recognized the importance of efficient worker training and process optimization.
Automotive Manufacturing
Improve the efficiency and quality of worker training.
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