Designing the Final assembly line concept for a Small African Regional Aircraft

Abstract

In this document, the need for the design of a final assembly line concept for a small African regional aircraft is addressed. The project sponsor needed the design of an assembly line concept for the assembly of a new small regional commercial aircraft that needs to be produced in high volumes, thus they sent out the student to do industry research to see how other aircraft manufacturers around the world produce and assemble commercial aircraft for the mass market. The student then started working on designing and testing his own design concepts. The Assembly line concepts were designed based on various facilities planning theories and techniques. These concepts where tested by using SIEMENS plant simulation software provided by the project sponsor. The data used in the simulation models, such as time studies, order arrivals etc. were based on industry research, past projects in the industry and calculated estimates. These models where then tested and validated to see which option would fit the company’s goals and needs best and provide them a concept from where to start designing the highly detailed assembly line. Three concept layouts where explored that was the most promising to fit the project sponsor’s needs: The Product family assembly layout concept, the Moving assembly line layout concept and the Fixed position assembly layout concept. These concepts all turned out to meet the requirements, however the moving assembly line layout concept was the most promising one of them all. Further recommendations would be to look at multiple fixed position assembly layouts in the short term and a combination of the moving assembly line layout and the product family layout for the long term.