Planned maintenance
A system upgrade is planned for 10/12-2024, at 12:00-13:00. During this time DiVA will be unavailable.
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Cost-effective manufacturing process for plastic components in automotive industry
University West, Department of Engineering Science, Division of Subtractive and Additive Manufacturing.
University West, Department of Engineering Science, Division of Subtractive and Additive Manufacturing.
2020 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

A seemingly increasing trend in the automotive industry is the prevalence of hybrid and electric vehicles. For Lear Corporation, a global automotive supplier of seating and electronic systems, this has caused a decrease in quantity of their products as these types of vehicles are manufactured at lower rates of volumes. An essential element of the electronic system provided by Lear is the wire harness. The wire harness is fastened and protected through plastic components called channels or brackets. These channels are fabricated through injection molding, one of the most common plastic manufacturing processes which offer many benefits. However, injection molding entails high upfront costs which are not suitable for the lower scales of production Lear expect. This prompted the company to seek other alternative processes and thus the idea of this thesis arose.The purpose of the thesis was to identify, evaluate and present alternative manufacturing processes that could potentially replace the current process. Furthermore, the possibility of decreasing the costs of the current process and making it viable for low volume production was explored.The study presented a total of nine common plastic manufacturing processes and subsequently performed a screening where processes deemed incompatible, in terms of aspects such as part complexity, size, volume and cost, were dismissed and processes deemed compatible in relation to the desired application were evaluated further. The processes kept for further examination were injection molding and additive manufacturing.Injection molding and additive manufacturing were evaluated further and ultimately cost estimates for each process were requested to manufacturers in order to make a cost analysis and further study the feasibility of respective process.The cost estimates and subsequent cost analysis indicated that the ideal and most cost-effective option for Lear would be changing the injection molding tool to MUD, aluminum or steel grade 738. This allows Lear to utilize the benefits of injection molding while decreasing the mold cost and upfront costs for the injection molding process substantially. Another proposal presented was to merge injection molding and additive manufacturing in a method called bridge production. This would allow Lear to increase flexibility and reduce lead time.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2020. , p. 71
Keywords [en]
manufacturing processes, plastic components, automotive industry
National Category
Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hv:diva-18241Local ID: EXM503OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hv-18241DiVA, id: diva2:1645127
Subject / course
Logistics
Educational program
Produktionsteknik
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2022-03-16 Created: 2022-03-16 Last updated: 2022-03-16Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(2591 kB)988 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 2591 kBChecksum SHA-512
a47922e36bd5a6df83d989217eaa8f89dd9fafbe74b9797f571598d232795fda5711e00d48fcd82b9e6a130f014df92ca42717fa3ba7d845c254c5cd6e89a7ae
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

By organisation
Division of Subtractive and Additive Manufacturing
Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 995 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

urn-nbn

Altmetric score

urn-nbn
Total: 640 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf