The iPROCELL system reaches markets with currently unmet needs. These markets are for the production and assembly of large consumer products such as passenger vehicles & small trucks, white goods, furniture as well as other large technical equipment and devices from many other industrial sectors that are being produced on an economic scale that fits between manual manufacture and full mass production line assembly methods. In our primary target market of Electric Vehicles (EV’s), where small batches of units are produced, neither manual or mass production methods are cost effective.
iPROCELL is a fully automated final assembly cell, with three autonomous robots situated around a centrally built location; it has a footprint, which is X12 smaller than traditional production lines. Our novel modular construction practice provides a cost effective, fully automated, final assembly solution that brings benefits to both the consumer and the supplier:
• Space and cost saving to manufacturers with our small footprint enabling decentralised production practices
• Decentralisation builds new regional supply chains and boosts local economies
• Time and cost saving for consumers, from decentralisation and our lean manufacturing model
• Increased customisation available to customers at no additional time or cost with flexible manufacturing
• Increased factory effectiveness with production of successively different products
• High quality production, with SOA robotics and IoT maintained product warranties
With our patented modular construction approach there are no direct competitors to iPROCELL. Our solution is designed to work alongside existing mass production lines, complementing the customer options available. Some competitive developments have been seen by BMW, Tesla, Porsche etc in integrating robotic production lines for flexible production but these are limited to existing practices.
The overall iPROCELL project objective was to finalise development and deliver a future-oriented production control and logistics solution that binds all process steps from the module production at the suppliers to automated final assembly.
