A new model does not require a new body shop. What it requires is a decision on every stand in the shop you already have, and four more decisions about how the work is priced and staged. Get those five right and a changeover is a series of planned shutdown windows. Get them wrong and it becomes one long stop with an open budget.
Decision 1 — how many stands survive
Every stand gets one of four verdicts: reused as it stands, rebuilt on the existing frame with new locators, converted to pneumatic and electrical control, or replaced. The proportion that comes back "reuse" or "rebuild" is what sets the budget, and it can only be established by comparing the old and new panels station by station.
That comparison is a survey, and the survey comes before the quotation, not after it. A supplier who quotes a shop-wide retooling without surveying it is quoting a risk premium.
Decision 2 — what to do with manual stands
A mechanically sound stand with manual clamping can be fitted with a pneumatic valve island and a small control box: the clamps gain a sequence, the operator gains a two-hand start, and the station gains a safety circuit and an HMI — without a new frame. This is the jig-box conversion, and it is the cheapest way to lift cycle time and safety level at the same time.
On a retooling project we delivered for a plant in north-west Russia, about 180 stands and hanging jigs were newly built or renovated with exactly this conversion applied where the frame was worth keeping.
Decision 3 — price per item, not per shop
Installation and commissioning priced as one lump for the whole shop force the shop to stop as one. Priced per stand, the plant can take a sub-assembly area down in one shutdown window and the main line in another.
Matching each line to the plant's own asset codes does something else: the same document then works for engineering, production, finance and maintenance at once, instead of being re-keyed three times.
Decision 4 — the shutdown sequence
Which stands go down in which window, and what the shop runs on meanwhile, is a production decision, not a supplier decision — but it has to be made before the delivery schedule is signed, because it sets the batching of the deliveries.
The useful planning question is not when the order is placed. It is when the panel data freezes: late design changes move the start of production more than anything a supplier does.
Decision 5 — how design changes are handled
Panel changes during execution are normal on a model change. Agree in advance that they are quoted item by item against the same asset codes as they arise, rather than settled as a renegotiation at the end.
Agree the same for spare parts: mechanical and electrical spare-parts lists belong with the project, so maintenance can stock before the line runs rather than after it stops.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a changeover take?
It depends on how much is rebuilt rather than replaced, and on your shutdown windows rather than the supplier's workshop. Renovation projects in our partner's records have run as short as two months from contract to installation.
Can you move a line instead of changing it?
Yes — survey, disassembly, marking, re-installation and re-commissioning, with the same documentation. We have done it inside a plant after hand-over.
Do we need to stop production to be surveyed?
No. The survey is done in production, with photographs, against your station list and asset codes.
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