Archetype of a battery module production line. How to flexibly produce battery modules for electric vehicles.

In the lasts years, one of the main trends related to the mobility is for sure electrification. In the fast evolving industrial arena, many companies are designing electric means of transport in order to adjust their production schedules to the new climate regulations that many different entities are issuing. The battery modules are essential components of these modern vehicles and, since this kind of industry is still young and not completely established, they still need a deep study in order to be designed and produced efficiently. Nowadays, different typologies of battery modules are produced depending essentially on the geometry of the cells and on the different design specifications. Due to these core differences between the different modules, the automation companies generally design tailored production lines to each commercial customer. This tailored approach is definitely a loss in terms of time and investments needed, for every new project that the company has to deal with. The objective of this thesis is to study and design a single flexible line that is able to produce different kinds of module. We will call this theoretical line the archetype, i.e. the line which contains the essential guidelines to produce efficiently battery modules, and that can be used as a general path to be adapted to all the specific cases.