Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe challenges the manufacturing industry is currently facing when developing future assembly information systems. More specific, this paper focuses on the handling of assembly information from manufacturing engineering to the shop floor operators.Design/methodology/approach: Multiple case studies have been conducted within one case company between 2014 and 2017. To broaden the perspective, interviews with additionally 17 large and global manufacturing companies and 3 industry experts have been held. Semi-structured interviews have been the main data collection method alongside observations and web questionnaires.Findings: Six focus areas have been defined which address important challenges in the manufacturing industry. For manual assembly intense manufacturing company, challenges such as IT challenges, process challenges, assembly process disturbances, information availability, technology and process control, and assembly work instructions have been identified and hinder implementation of Industry 4.0 (I4.0).Originality/value: This longitudinal study provides a current state analysis of the challenges the manufacturing industry is facing when handling assembly information. Despite the vast amount of initiatives within I4.0 and digitalization, this paper argues that the manufacturing industry needs to address the six defined focus areas to become more flexible and prepared for the transition toward a digitalized manufacturing industry.

The trend of diversifying product portfolios increases the challenges for global manufactures to keep production processes robust and maintain high quality. Manufacturing trucks with high level of customization increases the vulnerability to quality deviations in the assembly process. By studying eight manual assembly stations, at a truck manufacturing plant, it was found that high product variety has negative impact on production quality and that high production complexity is connected to high product variety. The study also showed that if operators do not have proper information systems, with accurate data, they need to trust their own knowledge and skills. Results imply that more research is needed to address how the production of products with high variety can be handled to lower the exposure to quality deviations

Standardized work has been one of several larger research topics in the automotive industry over the years. This paper gives a brief view of the current situation of standardized work in the automotive industry in Sweden. The paper is based on recently performed studies at several automotive actors in Sweden. Most of the present research about standardized work focuses on local premises. Therefore, this paper suggests more focus in future research on how to implement standardized work in global organizations focusing on local demands and cultural differences and similarities

ASSESSMENT BASED INFORMATION NEEDS IN MANUAL ASSEMBLY