Insights – Munich Consulting Group

Production bottlenecks in the caravanning industry

Hardly any other industry in Germany currently records similarly high growth rates as the caravanning industry. With an increase of more than 85 % compared to the same month of the previous year, new registrations of recreational vehicles in Germany in July 2020 reached undreamt-of heights. In order to meet the increased demand, manufacturers of caravans and motorhomes are faced with different challenges in production challenges in the area of efficient production as well as in the consideration of modern materials and digitalization.

CORONA – Maintenance of production in medium-sized companies.

The CORONA crisis still has us firmly in its grip and its effects are not yet fully foreseeable. It is essential for small and medium-sized manufacturing companies to keep up production. On the one hand to maintain their position on the market or on the other hand to simply ensure their own survival. Most important in this situation is the health of the employees and their families. This can only be achieved with appropriate measures.

High-voltage storage and possible EoL (End of Life) applications.

Due to the worldwide efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, the European Union has decided to introduce CO2 emission standards for passenger cars from 2020. The obvious way to reduce CO2 emissions from cars seems to be purchsing an electric car, which usually is referred to as BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) or PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle).

Variant reduction in series and aftersales.

To master a product segment completely today requires the coverage of all customer requirements. Companies therefore react to this with a high variance in the products they offer. This increases the complexity in almost all areas – from data handling to production, storage and distribution.

Returning parts chain within the framework of the circular economy act (Kreislaufwirtschaftsgesetz).

The circular economy act (Kreislaufwirtschaftsgesetz) enacted by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) on 1 June 2012 aims to promote closed-loop waste management and ensure environmentally sound waste management.

Retrofitting of an electric drive train in commercial vehicles.

"Diesel affair", a term that most automotive OEMs and suppliers are now shrugging at. Unlike passenger cars, trucks and buses have had to comply with the Euro 6 emissions standard since 2013.

Challenges in the cleaning of aluminium engine components intended for remanufacturing.

For light metal castings with demanding geometries such as cylinder heads, despite the major challenges posed by the upstream cleaning process, remanufacturing is a promising segment from both an economic and an ecological point of view with enormous growth potential.

IT solutions for an efficient remanufacturing process of combustion engines

For decades, parts remanufacturing has been a lucrative business for many OEMs and is enjoying ever greater acceptance and demand/popularity among end customers. A distinction must be made between classic reuse, where components are cleaned, measured and put back into circulation, and remanufacturing, where components are disassembled, measured, mechanically processed and re-assembled.

Challenges in the back-measurement of components without development specifications.

In order to reproduce or remanufacture complex components, technical component drawings with dimensions, tolerance and surface treatment data are required. This is often not the case if the manufacturer buys the components from third parties – the so-called “black box”.

Series production of remanufactured components with high process times and costs.

The concept of remanufacturing seems to be lucrative in the automotive spare parts sector, especially for large series production quantities. However, prior to any component project, an economic and technical examination is advisable in order to avoid high process and manufacturing costs for remanufacturing in series.

Water treatment of washing water in the automobile production with cavity wax.

At the end of the assembly of a vehicle in an automotive plant, the vehicle undergoes both a leak test with water applied to the bodywork under high pressure and a washing system for final cleaning before being prepared for transport to the end customer.

Cooling systems and initial filling for electric vehicles.

For vehicles with purely electric drive, it is generally assumed that the initial filling with operating media is easier than for derivatives with internal combustion engines – among other things, there is no need to fill up with fuel. But the opposite is true. The integration of an electric vehicle into an existing production line also poses a particular challenge for media filling.

Tolerance extensions in the remanufacturing process.

In order to satisfy customer demand for low-cost spare parts with a manufacturer’s warranty, automobile manufacturers have been remanufacturing certain vehicle components for years. Such reuse of used parts, however, cannot be validated from a series point of view.

Special challenges in the remanufacturing of spare parts.

At a time when sustainability and economy are no longer mutually exclusive, the reprocessing of valuable components is becoming increasingly important in the automotive industry. In recent years, high expectations of a sustainable parts chain and a low-cost customer offering have become increasingly noticeable and continue to grow.

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