The encyclopedia · Engineering & Operations · Operational decision · 2016–2020
VW's prototype shop scheduled daily work with integer programming, lifting output 38.7%
Volkswagen's Pre-Production Center replaced manual capacity scheduling with a spreadsheet DSS, raising manufacturing volume 38.7% and saving six figures a year.
Volkswagen
the move
The Volkswagen Pre-Production Center (VPC) assembles every prototype of the Volkswagen brand, but its staff were often under-utilized and manufacturing volume was low for the available capacity.
TU Braunschweig researchers first built a binary integer programming prototype for the capacity scheduling problem. It revealed substantial headroom over the manual procedure.
A spreadsheet-based decision support system was then rolled out for daily scheduling. On average, the optimization plans increased total manufacturing volume by 38.7% versus manually generated plans.
After successful test implementation and rollout, the VPC estimated annual cost savings in the six-digit euro range, and OR/MS methods began spreading to neighboring departments.
why it works
- A cheap prototype proved the upside before any rollout commitment.
- Spreadsheet delivery matched how planners already worked.
- Scheduling orders onto resources beats hoping for utilization.
- A 38.7% volume lift turned a niche prototype shop into a showcase for OR.
what transfers
Before automating a whole plant, prototype the model beside the existing manual process; a tool daily planners can open in a spreadsheet gets adopted where a black-box system would not.
what came after
The work was summarized by the OR Society in 'Improving Resource Utilisation in Prototype Vehicle Production' (2020) and published in INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics; the same research group continued spreading optimization to neighboring VPC departments.
references
- The Volkswagen Pre-Production Center Applies Operations Research to Optimize Capacity Scheduling
- Improving Resource Utilisation in Prototype Vehicle Production
- The Volkswagen Pre-Production Center Applies Operations Research to Optimize Capacity Scheduling
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