Heavy duty trucks consist of thousands of different components and subsystems. The customization level of a truck corresponds to the specific requirements of each customer. Due to the number of options each operator needs to consider due to high level of product variety, a number of measures to deal with complexity and perceived complexity are in place.

With new technology and solutions (as in software) new solutions are possible which can possibly affect the perceived complexity and the product quality in real time. One solution is to introduce custom decision support that takes in consideration operator experience, knowledge, product variant, assembly station, takt time etc.

Volvo Group Trucks Operations, GTO has defined a challenge aimed for an industrial pilot where different teams of students will work on a solution to stated challenge during a timeframe of 10 weeks during the fall of 2020.

The GTO challenge is focused on improving digital tools in a manual assembly context. Due to the increased handling of high product variety, the operators require better decision support during their assembly tasks. This decision support needs to consider multiple parameters that affects the ability of the operator to perform an assembly task as required. Therefore, GTO aims to introduce digital and dynamic assembly work instructions for Volvo Group Smart Factory. The concept will eventually be implemented as a module for the smart manufacturing IT system.