AMS Evo 2024 blog: Focusing on North America’s flexible, digital and lean production future

We are back for our second edition of the AMS Automotive Evolution North America 2024 in Michigan! As North American OEMs and suppliers upgrade facilities and build new EV and battery plants, the conference will explore strategies to meet evolving customer demand and regulatory challenges.

Speakers including Christopher Glover from Volkswagen Group of America, Chattanooga Plant, Jaime Moore from Toyota Motor North America Research and Development Center, Dr. Sardar Asif Khan from Stellantis, Marc Dugas from Ford, Brian Breuhan from GM and many others will deliver insightful sessions. 

Throughout the event, we’ll be providing live blog coverage with real-time insights, updates, and key takeaways. In the meantime, keep reading our countdown blog for some speaker interviews and articles we covered in the past that will build some groundwork for next week!

You can still buy passes to the event. Click here to register!

24th October

Marc Dugas, Ford’s battery pack assembly specialist, is driving innovation in EV battery production with a focus on simplification and efficiency. While speaking with AMS earlier this year on using the POSIWID (Purpose Of the System Is What It Does) framework, Dugas emphasised the importance of collaboration between design and manufacturing teams to eliminate unnecessary components and streamline the assembly process. This approach is not only improving production speed but also making scaling more practical as demand for EVs increases. 

Dugas will present these strategies at the AMS Evo 2024 event, where he will speak in the “Accelerating EV Battery Integration” session. He will share his insights on how Ford is streamlining battery pack assembly through process simplification, component reduction, and enhanced collaboration between engineering and manufacturing teams.

According to Dugas, “Production efficiency is about deleting components and processes.” His philosophy revolves around reducing non-value-added efforts and aligning teams across the production chain, ensuring that Ford’s EV battery assembly processes are both faster and more scalable as the company expands its electric vehicle portfolio.

this is how dugas supercharges ford’s battery pack assembly using posiwid. read it here 

24th October

Chris Glover, Executive Vice-President, Volkswagen Group of America, Chattanooga Plant, has overseen operations since 2022, and has highlighted the importance of flexibility, digitalisation, and workforce training in managing the plant’s transformation. Speaking to AMS, Glover explained, “The only constant in our industry right now is change […] The automotive industry is currently going through the biggest transformation it has seen in over 100 years – it’s not an evolution, it’s a revolution.”

This forward-looking approach is what enables Chattanooga to adapt to the changeable demands of automotive production, from electrification to advanced manufacturing processes, and under the Glover’s leadership, has become a beacon for handling market volatility and the complexities of producing both EV and ICE vehicles.

At AMS Evolution 2024, Glover will deliver a keynote address on the complexities of transforming automotive manufacturing. This process is akin to managing a multi-lane highway, and strategic investment and meticulous planning are essential for enhancing flexibility across vehicle production lines, plant technologies, and workforce development.

Not stopping there, Glover will also speak on the panel, ”Scaling manufacturing agility in the face of constant automotive change.” This discussion will delve into the strategies and tools essential for automotive manufacturers to enhance their flexibility and responsiveness and explore how to achieve greater operational agility to keep pace with evolving market demands.

Read the article: Change is the only constant for Volkswagen Chattanooga EVP Christopher Glover

More to come…