Living with continuous disruption: the struggle on automotive manufacturing’s front line

“We’ve become masters of hitting the ground running.” It’s an opener that hints not only at the sheer scale of the challenges the automotive industry has faced in recent years, but also the unprecedented degree of change it’s had to navigate, and the impossibly tight timescales it’s had to achieve it.

Much has been written about the pandemic, the global semiconductor shortage, and the drive to deliver net-zero. But less well understood by those outside the industry is what this has meant to those on the factory floor, the men and women tasked with physically delivering it. For them, there is no ‘new normal.’ It’s a life spent at the cutting edge, managing a continuous stream of disruption. And for a glimpse into this world, we’ve sat down with a senior manager from a global robotics provider, whose clients’ blushes we’ll protect with anonymity.

“Electric vehicles are new to everyone, and as a result their design is constantly changing, with no accepted best solution,” he explains. “One project might use a particular motor design, but the next might use something completely different. Each will demand their own manufacturing processes, and both will be radically different to anything the industry has dealt with before. Where do you go to learn about this stuff?”

Electric motors aren’t new to the industry. In the past, when selecting motors to drive electric windows or power seats, car makers would have outsourced production to their suppliers. But with traction motors so pivotal to the definition of an electric vehicle, this work is often now brought in-house. As a result, OEMs have had to learn about techniques such as varnishing – used to electrically insulate the internal windings and to protect and secure them – a process that was previously completely alien to them.

“Do you hire new people with these skills, upskill existing workers, farm out their production, bring in consultants, or resort to an off-the-shelf part?” our man poses. It’s a tough choice for any manufacturer. And no matter which route you take, there are staffing challenges to be resolved.

“Ultimately, society has changed, and that’s hurt manufacturing,” he tells us. Today’s workers are far more willing to move, to travel, or even emigrate, and with manufacturing not seen in the same glamourous light as the likes of Silicon Valley, the automotive industry finds itself subject to high rates of employee churn.

New roles promising the ability to work from home have meant many people have already left the industry, never to return, while early retirement – accelerated by the pandemic – has effectively taken the top level of experience off the industry entirely. And although the older workers that remain are more likely to stay put, their younger replacements – graduates in particular – are keen to gain experience before stepping-off to something else, somewhere else.

But these perceptions that cast automotive manufacturing in a negative light are often outdated. Smart automation, artificial intelligence and increasing use of virtualisation have made the industry one of the most exciting and cutting-edge places to work. Outreach programmes that collaborate with schools and universities to teach automation and software skills from an early age are helping to overturn the image of vehicle factories as something from a bygone age.

However, it’s not just the workforce that’s changing. The companies are, too. New start-ups have been quick to stake a claim on this new, electrified frontier, and although they’ve had to start from zero and learn everything from scratch, that’s not necessarily a disadvantage when the incumbents are in the same boat.

Established OEMs are more likely to migrate existing workers into these new roles, whereas start-ups tend to use all new people, perhaps with some experienced personnel only at the high levels. That may bring with it a fresh perspective, but in some common areas such as logistics, the important lessons can be hard to learn. “One client was handling a part four times to get it to the assembly line, wasting time, money, and increasing breakages. An established player would only need to do it once.”

In some areas, the experience of long-serving workers can be directly transferred. “One OEM moved their axle and transmission people from ICE assembly to EVs. That forced a whole new way of thinking upon them and created a steep learning curve, but it didn’t take long for them to find opportunities to use their knowledge to improve the assembly process, even if that was something as simple as adding a locating pin to aid handling during assembly.”

Often the rate of change in the industry is so great that the design of a product is altered before the production line has been completed. Gone are the days of pilot operations that saw lines built in a test facility for validation before being moved to the final production site. Now, demands are made for the line to be built in-situ and be capable of churning out product almost from day one.

In fact, so rapid can be the advancement of technology that production lines sometimes need to be built before the product has even been designed. “A recent project tasked us with designing a line to build six different parts, but only one had been finalised. When you don’t even know basic requirements such as the part’s dimensions, how do you know what to aim for?”

One can only imagine the degree of hair-pulling that must go on behind the scenes. But for our guy and his team, there are always opportunities to design-in a certain amount of future flexibility. The rise of flexible manufacturing principles, for example, allow OEMs to start small and ramp up as demand increases. Traditional long-line production architectures are increasingly replaced by dedicated modular cells, arranged alongside the line like leaves on a branch, and this approach means cells can be added or modified without incurring costly interruptions to production.

Sometimes that’s just as well. “For a project in the US, the customer made a late design change that meant that rather than a 100kN press, we needed 300kN. That’s a highly specialised piece of equipment that doesn’t exactly sit around on a shelf. With supply chain constraints, that introduced its own five-month lead-time. But, working with the client, we’ll design a way of starting production with the current press and upgrade to the new process later on.”

Perhaps the industry will coalesce around a particular way of working as EV adoption becomes more widespread, although our contact is pragmatic about battery electric vehicles in general. “They might not be perfect for everyone, but despite the challenges of material supply, right now they’re seen as the ‘best stone to step on.’ As the technology matures, it’s likely a best practice will emerge and we’ll look back on these pioneering days with amusement.”

That’s unlikely to mean an end to the disruption, though. And with recent news revealing a slowdown by some players in their EV plans, might our automotive factories have to volte-face and pivot back to ICE technology? He seems unperturbed by the prospect.

“Whatever headaches the automotive industry has, we’re confident we can develop the right medicine.”