Approximately 30,000 individual parts are combined to form a car. A delay on the assembly line can be catastrophic. Julian Champkin looks at the requirements of the automotive industry for upgrading.
Automobile production involves cutting and pressing steel, welding, and assembling a large number of parts of various sizes and weights. The materials range from tiny screws to glass bulbs and fabric seat covers to truck chassis weighing tons. The shape-the body shell, the engine block-can be awkward; the alignment must be perfect; most importantly, the production line is everything.
“As we all know, the continuity of production is one of the main priorities of the automotive industry,” said Oguzhan Gülerci, an export expert at Turkish crane manufacturer CMAK. "Any production interruption will bring huge problems and costs, which is unacceptable. We know that cranes and cranes are one of the key components of the production line."
Therefore, reliability is absolute; CMAK and other companies provide personnel in the automotive industry with monitoring cranes to ensure that they maintain a reliable system.
"In view of this demand, CMAK's HoistSense+ electronic control unit is the most suitable technology we show to automotive manufacturing customers and other user industries," Gülerci said. "HoistSense+ is a crane monitoring system as well as a monitoring system with high-tech sensors and Industry 4.0 integration.
"The system operates as a crane monitor through its integrated sensors and provides information about the crane status, such as actual load, safe working hours, and service hours. It checks temperature, brake linings and inverters, and if problems are found, it Users are reminded and allowed to take necessary actions. Therefore, downtime caused by crane failures is minimized."
Another key factor in the automotive industry is the speed of construction. The number of minutes saved or lost per car adds up to a huge sum of money, which may affect profit and loss. Here, lifting equipment can also play its role. "The automotive industry is always racing against time," Gülerci said. "Therefore, HoistSense+'s'speeding function' offers users an advantage." An example of the system in use is in a factory that manufactures military trailers-see the case study below.
American lifting expert Gorbel's automotive representative Fred Tangelder has 20 years of experience in this field. "The load lifted in automobile manufacturing is not large," he said. "I have seen loads as small as 30 lbs (13 kg) that require lifting equipment to handle them. At the other end of the spectrum may be 1,500 or 2,000 lbs (700-900 kg) loads; but more typically it may be 100 -1,000 lbs (45-450 kg) range. This covers almost everything from the flywheel on the engine to the suppressed body moving onto the chassis."
Columbus McKinnon covers a similar load range for automotive industry applications. "We provide a full range of components, such as body deck hoists, wire rope hoists, inverter controllers, etc. used to pick up vehicle parts along the assembly line. They are used for small jib cranes from 1/8 ton to 2 ton and in a single work cell. Workstation cranes, all the way to bridge cranes of up to 30 tons and 40 tons in the stamping plant," said Ed Butte, director of global strategy and product development.
"However, the key to the automotive industry is volume and frequency," Gorbel's Tangelder said. "The factory may produce 800 products per shift. This can translate into repetition every 30 seconds; it is tiring for a human operator to perform so many repetitive movements at that frequency and in such a long time. So. They will need auxiliary machinery to help lift and position; the technology in this area becomes interesting.
"Some options are electric chain hoists, air balancers or cylinder-driven hoisting machinery. The application and all important repetition frequencies may not absolutely determine the technology, but it usually limits the choice of technology used. For example, if the electric hoist is Need to perform 800 lifts and place a shift, the electric chain hoist may not be the best choice because it is slower and the relay control will suffer considerable wear. A better choice may be an air balancer or an H5 servo Drive elevators.” (The H5 classification is suitable for duty cycles that are close to continuous operation and up to 600 starts per hour.)
"Higher loads, such as 200 lbs or 300 lbs (90-140 kg) lifts, such as fully installed engines or gearboxes, will still perform 800 cycles per shift, because each sub-unit on the production line must follow Motor speed production. Electric chain hoist can be used for this application; but to lift a larger load, you may need a large air balancer, or two devices, dual air balancers, one left and one right, Work together to bear the weight.
"The choice boils down to such considerations, considering what is best for the application.
"How to choose an improvement method in each application will also depend on the needs of each company and its engineers. They may have personal preferences; they may have favorite suppliers and favorite brands, depending on the past performance of the product. . Mainly depends on the individual engineer and his prospects, and how the sales staff will display the product. “So you may have a factory that decides to coordinate a technology of the preferred supplier, such as electric chain hoist or pneumatic hoist; its mechanism and choice Will evolve over time based on experience.
"Another big thing in the automotive industry is downtime. Even 60 seconds is important. If cranes or cranes continue to fail, or if they fail due to complex or not quickly available parts to repair it, it is difficult to repair, the company I will try my best to stay away from it in the future.
“As a result, manufacturers will be attracted by the technologies and products that have been up and running for the longest time. This is indeed a huge driving force for the automotive industry.
"These considerations apply to original equipment manufacturers, such as big players like Honda and Toyota. They also apply to Tier 1 suppliers, which are downstream manufacturers that supply at least one component for each car, such as steering module or fuel tank manufacturers. They must also maintain the same high productivity to keep up with the productivity of the vehicle. Therefore, if you are manufacturing complex components such as engines, your cycle time is very close to the cycle time of the car manufacturer."
Perhaps unexpectedly, at least in the United States and to a certain extent in Europe, full digital control is not at the forefront of car manufacturing. "The complexity of numbers, perhaps surprisingly, I haven't seen a lot at all," Tangelder said. There are two factors that may cause this situation: "Automobiles are traditionally a labor-intensive industry, and people tend to stick to industries that have worked well in the past.
"And many applications require manual operations at the point of delivery. Removing components from the dunnage is an example. When you unload parts, they are tightly packed together to optimize for the number of parts on the pallet. This means They may be so densely packed that the crane's gripping mechanism cannot easily grasp them. This poses a problem for automation; but for a human operator who has assistive technology on his crane, this is no problem.
"Similarly, when a component is brought to the assembly line, it may have to be deposited in exactly the right direction onto the component already on the production line. The bolt holes must be perfectly aligned, the positioning pins must be engaged, etc. Multiple surfaces must be accurate And align at the same time. As long as the human muscles involved are helpful, the human eye and hand may still be the most cost-effective solution. Therefore, such lifting and positioning applications tend to be as automated as possible, but the operator still needs Manual driving.
"And he or she is still doing 800 manual operations per shift; this means that ergonomics therefore plays an important role in the design of your lifting equipment. To maximize productivity, you try to filter out as much Human error, so production lines and machines are highly engineered to reduce or eliminate human errors that may be introduced. This is the goal of any company that manufactures automotive production tools.
"Such tool manufacturers want to achieve complete automation, but the cost is too high. As we have seen, the density of the parts is one factor. The density of the operators is another. The robot arm is used instead of the production line operator. For the sake of safety, the robot must Enclose it with a fence; this takes up space along the line. In fact, it can easily multiply the required length of the line by three or even five times. A line that is five times longer than the required length is not cost-effective. So Manufacturers still use human operators because they are wise to do so.
"There are also some very subtle considerations. A robot, whether it is a wheeled or robotic crane, can easily place a load from A to B; but it will transfer to B accurately. It may be necessary to place its load accurately on On the other part, and then connected to this part-but there is no consistency required in the whole system. The second part may not be the correct place for the robot to store it. It may be a few millimeters to the left or right. Conveyor belt or transportation Mechanisms are flexible enough to deal with uncertainty of plus or minus six inches. Therefore, humans still retain all these types of material handling tasks because of the infinite variability required in setting up each part.
“The components must follow a similar path each time, but not the same path. Therefore, the control of the crane is a hands-on operation, using lifting assistance rather than being fully automated. Flexibility is required; and by a human operator Provided. So digital control does not perform well in these scenarios.” Therefore, the above-mentioned technologies such as CMAK's HoistSense+ are very suitable for the automotive industry. Other companies also provide products with this design concept-technology that helps but does not control. Gorbel is proud to provide its G-Force technology here. "A feature of G-Force is that it can provide continuously variable transmission," Tangelder said. "The chain hoist has two horizontal speeds, fast and slow; when you approach the delivery point, the slow speed may still be too fast. The operator needs more skill. He or she may have to step back a little and get closer again .You are assembling the curved surfaces together, and the angle and positioning pins and bolt holes must be engaged at the same time; so you need to shift speed on your crane: go fast in the first part of the journey, before attempting the final landing and marriage, Slow down first to align it. So G-Force lets you do it right the first time."
And it can automatically set the approach deceleration: "I can set the deceleration limit, for example, two inches before delivery. Automatically switch to a lower speed. This provides you with an accurate method. It is very effective in cars: they like this Function."
He said that G-force provides upper and lower height limits. "Those set a clear scope of work. This will prevent you from wasting time lifting too high and you have to spend more time going down again; similarly, it prevents you from walking too low. It can improve lifting efficiency. ."
Columbus McKinnon (Columbus McKinnon) also provides this combination of automation and humanity. "We provide semi-automatic crane control systems that are widely used in the automotive industry," Butte said. "These solutions are applicable to a wide range of automotive processes, applicable to companies that manufacture cars and Tier 1 suppliers." Their uses are multifaceted: "Some specific applications include dipping and coating, assembly, painting, storage and retrieval Wait.
"For example, our cranes are suitable for transporting automotive stamping dies from the stamping machine to the storage area, and from the storage area to the punching machine in a safe and effective manner."
Safety features include configurable restricted areas or "no-fly zones" in which normal operations are not allowed or restricted. "The system we provide can specify the area where the crane is programmed to stop or decelerate. There is a remote control belly box transmitter for "go/no go" situations. Another unique system is the Pro-Path automated workstation crane, which is ideal for the automotive industry Choice. It can provide semi-automatic and fully automatic configuration according to application requirements.
"In its semi-automatic configuration, also known as automatic scheduling, ProPath allows automatic movement while also using manual assistance for precise operations," he said. "The movement is initiated by the Magnetek brand radio remote control or overhang button station. The pulse variable frequency drive provides power for the bridge, trolley and crane movement. When the crane travels to the designated position, the operator can freely handle other critical tasks without Manually guide the crane and its load.
"The intelligence built into the fully automated ProPath configuration manages the material flow throughout the manufacturing process, requiring limited manual interaction beyond the initial setup. Accurate, repeatable processes reduce idle time, provide consistent operations, and shorten cycle times. This higher level of automation provides continuous analysis and diagnosis, allowing the operator to know the status of the system at any time. System feedback allows planned maintenance to minimize downtime. The variable frequency drive monitors the hook height and load throughout the process Parameters such as status and speed. Most importantly, the manufacturing process becomes more efficient.
"Pneumatic chain hoists, such as CM ShopAir, are also very popular in automotive applications where cranes continue to operate," he said. "Pneumatic hoists provide high-speed and continuous working cycles, so there is no need to worry about overheating. Recently, VFD-controlled electric chain hoists, such as Lodestar VS, have become more and more popular. These hoists have easy-to-program position limits for smooth acceleration and deceleration. , Thereby reducing the time required to locate the hook. VFD control can achieve a faster lifting speed when the hook is not loaded, which greatly improves efficiency."
We saw above that some manufacturers like pneumatic hoists, and some manufacturers like electric hoists. With the advancement of technology, Columbus McKinnon found a change in some cases: “As some assembly plants try to get rid of pneumatic material handling equipment, we provide lifting equipment with frequency conversion control that can achieve very high operating speeds and Duty cycle," Bart said. "Variable-speed drive hoists will not reduce the operating speed as the load increases. This is a common problem with pneumatic hoists. Air lifts will generate mist in the air. Eliminating this can improve manufacturing quality, especially in the field of finishing and assembly.
"Crane synchronization, suitable for applications where multiple cranes are used to lift or move loads together, swing control, which also improves the accuracy of load placement, and anti-shock technology, which automatically stabilizes the load by detecting and minimizing the rapid increase in motor torque , Improve efficiency and productivity; Microspeed allows operators to make precise and slow movements."
In the automotive industry, it seems that the gourd is giving operators more help; but in the final analysis, humans are still under control.
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