ART For Human Possibilities
The motorcycle assembly factory at Yamaha Motor headquarters in Japan is where various products destined for markets around the world are born, and the facility is in the midst of transforming into a smart factory.
Dynamic innovations to production processes are underway on the factory floor, and with the number of assembly lines halved in just three years, the way the factory even looks is undergoing rapid changes.
Every day, approximately 9,000 different types of parts go into assembling various products at Yamaha Motor’s motorcycle assembly factory, with some 600,000 parts being used every day. Completed products are shipped from this facility to customers all around the world, and if you were to only watch the products arriving one by one at the factory’s loading bay, that part of the production process may appear to be rather simple. However, behind that simplicity lies a sophisticated simulation that responds to often fluctuating production plans.
“This is often a surprise to most people, but motorcycles are somewhat of a seasonal product. Because of the fluctuating demand, the difficulty posed by efficiently producing various kinds of products in small lots has been a challenge for us for quite some time,” explains a member of the Assembly Engineering Division. “If we were always producing a set volume of the same thing every day, we could use simpler equipment and production setups. However, this creates an inefficient situation in which you have one line operating at full capacity day and night, while the adjacent line lies idle.”
Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) began full-scale operation in the factory last year and are providing a solution to Yamaha’s longstanding problem of high-mix, low-volume production. They can be linked together to form an assembly line or they can disconnect from the line and move to the next assembly process on their own. Called the “AGV Bypass Method,” it is an innovative production method that replaces the conventional conveyor style of product assembly.