about the project
Our project involved working with the Turku University of Applied Sciences (TUAS) and Valmet Automotive (VA) to produce a New Design Guide for the VA manufacturing engineering department. These guidelines aimed to help in the design of manufacturing lines for the body shop of the Valmet Automotive vehicle production facility.
​
Valmet Automotives' slogan 'the fast lane to future vehicles' was the insiration for our slogan 'the fast lane to graduation' as graduating with our masters degrees will be the vehicle to our successful futures.
Project Aims
The existing design guide used by Valmet Automotive to advise designers on best practices for their body shop was outdated as it had not been updated since the early 2000s. Subsequently, the automotive industry has vastly changed not only its designs and manufacturing processes but the in the way projects are documented and communicated between different partners. Our aim is to provide Valmet Automotive with a New Design Guide. The up-to-date guide will detail to designers best practices that should be followed, the materials and parts available for use, and required documentation methods to ensure that work can be effectively communicated and efficiently implemented by VA.
The Plan
The project plan was split into three drafts of the New Design Guide. Completing the First Draft was to include content from the existing design guide, our own research and information from Valmet Automotive. The Second Draft would then be formed by conducting a Practical Investigation. This would involve testing the content of the First Draft by using it to design our own body shop assembly station. Any necessary changes would be made to form the Second Draft. Lastly, the Final Draft was planned to be formed through consultation with Valmet Automotive engineers and designers.
Work Completed
The project team sucessfully completed the First and Second Draft in a similar fashion to the origional plan. Some of the work completed is written about in our blog posts, including videos from the Practical Investigation. However, for reasons outwith our control, the final stage of the project could not be completed. Instead, we prepared a 'project handover' document to allow a future team to take up our work and complete the New Design Guide.
Highlights
The biggest highlight of our technical work was our practical investigation. This stage of the project involved pulling all of the knowledge we had gained together to simulate an automotive assembly station. This culminated in the neat simulation below. Check out our "practical simulation and VR!!!" blog post to find out why this was needed and what we found out.
