The future of manufacturing: The first modular seat factory in Eastern Europe

Building a seat structure is a process that involves multiple manufacturing processes. After the stamping of most of its single parts, these parts are being MAG1- and Laserwelded together and painted in a dip-coating process. Following the painting, the components are assembled with screws and bolts and a number of additional parts like electrical motors, cables and labels are added. The finished structure tested for functionality and acoustics before packed and shipped in specifically built carriers to our customers.

Brose and its seating division have been at the forefront of modern technology since 1990. Brose engineers have driven and further developed the laser welding process for the assembly of seat structures. It is a precise and robust process. Brose now has an installation base of more than 180 laser source across the globe.

A seat structure can have a weight of up to 35 kg. It is a safety-critical product, which has to be proof-tested extensively. Numerous poka-yokes in fixtures as well as online process control of all screwing operations are a given standard. The manufacturing requires a lot of capital for welding and paint fixtures, welding machines, automated assembly and testing cells. OEM2-requirements ask for the provision of additional flexible capacity of up to +20% in capacity for each production step while take-rates can fluctuate substantially between different variants.

Authors and Affiliations

1. Brose Fahrzeugteile GmbH & Co. KG, Coburg, Germany

   Lutz Wünn

Editors and Affiliations

1. Fahrzeugmotoren Stuttgart -FKFS-, Forschungsinstitut für Kraftfahrwesen und, Stuttgart, Germany

   Michael Bargende

2. Forschungsinstitut für Kraftfahrwesen -FKFS-, Stuttgart, Germany

   Hans-Christian Reuss

3. Forschungsinstitut für Kraftfahrwesen -FKFS-, Stuttgart, Germany

   Jochen Wiedemann

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