The industry 4.0 is continuously aiming to produce faster, increasing quality, and strictly using what is necessary to achieve efficiency enhancement. Within the wide list of methods used to reach this target, robot automation is usually used, although is expensive and rigid. Alternatively, a Japanese cheap automation philosophy called "Karakuri", is being introduced by Volvo GTO to manage this goal. This thesis relies on this philosophy, which takes profit of the existing energy, like gravity, to put in motion mechanisms, in order to reduce costs and improve the production efficiency by developing a semi-automated material handling system. The design method followed, the Scrum, divides the thesis in several phases of development, presenting a fully developed solution at the end of each one and iteratively increasing the level of definition along the process, to finally provide a solution suitable to be implemented.
The aim of this thesis is to stream line the material handling tasks between assembly stations, by implementing a low-cost automation system, reducing costs and time and increasing the efficiency. The methods used to design such a system are Karakuri and SCRUM. The Karakuri low cost system is to rely on the existing energy, like the potential energy of the components, to put the mechanism in motion. The SCRUM method is to divide the study in different phases of development and to present a fully developed solution the end of each phase. Also to increase the level of definition along the duration of the thesis and to finally yield a factory-ready solution, suitable to be implemented. As a conclusion, the thesis demonstrates how automation is possible without high implementation costs and inflexibility characteristics of the commonly used robots.