Designing Automated Production Lines for Today’s Needs and Tomorrow’s Opportunities

Automated production lines can create major advantages in manufacturing, from faster output with higher consistency and repeatability to improved quality control and more efficient use of labor. But automation is also a significant investment. It takes time, capital, engineering expertise and careful planning, so the decision to automate is never taken lightly.

That is why the best automation concepts are not only designed around the product or program in front of them. They also need to consider what may come next: future variants, changing volumes, additional process steps or new production locations.

In this article, I’ll look at how Rompa has applied this thinking for a leading automotive customer, designing an automated production line around today’s requirements while creating flexibility for future opportunities.

In practice, designing an automated production line should always start with the known requirements. What needs to be produced now? At what volume? Which assembly, inspection, or packaging steps need to be included? What level of quality control is required? How much factory floor space is available? And how will the investment be connected to the customer’s wider manufacturing program?

These questions matter because automation is not an abstract concept. It is a physical production asset that needs to fit a real product, a real forecast, and a real manufacturing environment.

Flexibility only creates value when the base process is strong. Before looking at future variants or additional opportunities that may need to be supported tomorrow, the first priority is to design a line that can reliably produce today’s required parts at the right quality, volume and cost level. Once that foundation is clear, the next question becomes: how much adaptability can be built into the concept from the start?

So, how do you build flexibility into your automation design? Let’s look at a recent automation project with a leading automotive customer.

Rompa was producing parts for a steering-related application. The customer had several product variants within the same overall product envelope. Each variant had its own specific features, but the base requirements were similar enough to create an opportunity.

A narrowly designed automated line could have been built around one product version. But that would have limited the value of the investment. The initial variants alone would not have filled the line across the full year, leaving valuable production capacity unused.

Instead, Rompa looked at the common requirements across the variants and developed an automation concept that could support multiple versions of the product. The line was built around a shared foundation, with specific elements adapted for each variant where needed.

Today, the line produces multiple variants, outputting around 1.2 million products per year. There is capacity to go as high as 2 million per year as future variants are added to the same product family.

In automated production, flexibility does not mean one line can produce anything at any time. The variation still needs to be engineered into the concept from the start.

In this case, the product variants share enough commonality for one automated line to support them, but each new variant still has an impact on planning. Changeovers need to be managed. Annual volumes need to be calculated. Safety stock may be needed to handle peaks in end-customer demand. And the more variants that are added, the more important it becomes to understand how each one affects available line capacity.

That is why Rompa’s role is not only to design and implement the automation. Our team uses their decades of combined experience to help define how the line will be used in practice to maximize efficiency: which variants will run, in what sequence, at what frequency, and with which buffers in place, to meet the customer’s evolving business needs.

In production, flexibility is smart, but it’s not magic. It is engineered, calculated, and planned.

Designing for tomorrow’s opportunities is not only about adding more variants to the same line. It can also shape how production capacity is expanded over time.

In this case, the existing automated line has enough capacity to support further growth. But if volumes continue to increase, the next step may not be to design a completely new line from scratch. Instead, the customer can evaluate whether the same automation concept could be duplicated on a second line or implemented in another region.

That matters because manufacturing demand does not always grow in one place or at a single, predictable pace. A second line can create more capacity, but it can also create more flexibility. If similar lines exist in different locations, production can be balanced across regions to support local demand, manage volume changes, or provide additional resilience if disruption occurs or geopolitical changes make it expedient.

For manufacturers, this is where adaptable automation can become more than a single production asset. It can become a repeatable production concept.

The lessons learned from this specific automotive case study are not limited to one line or product family. They reflect a broader Rompa approach: when we review a customer’s part or production requirement, we also look at what happens after the injection molding process.

Does the part need an insert, seal, ring or other component? Does it need to be assembled with another part? Does it require inspection, testing, or packaging? Is there a manual process later in the customer’s own production flow that could be integrated earlier?

In the automotive project, Rompa’s automated line supports additional assembly and handling steps, including O-ring insertion, controlled application of lubricants, and packaging of the completed parts. This helps the customer control more of the production flow in one integrated process.

In another customer program, Rompa identified that a molded part was having a separate component manually fitted to it once it left our factory. This enabled us to suggest an adjustment to our line that brought the two processes together in one step and saved the customer both time and complexity. That is exactly the kind of opportunity we look for: a step that may be better controlled, simplified, or automated as part of the wider production flow.

For customers, this can reduce handoffs, simplify planning and create more consistent output. For Rompa, it helps us design automation concepts that support the product as it moves through production, not just the individual step we have been asked to quote.

Whether you are designing around one product, multiple variants, or a production concept that may need to scale across regions, the best time to build in flexibility is before the line is finalized.

Speak to Rompa’s expert team about designing automated production lines that support today’s requirements while creating room for future production needs.