PILOT CASE
Volkswagen Autoeuropa:
Vehicle body shop and final assembly demonstrator
Pilot Description
The pilot will focus on car alignment, which translates into ensuring the correct gaps and flushes values throughout the production process. The gap refers to the horizontal distance between the panels being measured, while the flush is related to the alignment of the two surfaces. The gap and flush measurements are carried out at several stages along the production line, to inspect the fitting and alignment between two surfaces, for instance to check the alignment of the tailgate or the correct assembly of the rear lights.
The main objective of the VWAE pilot is to correlate and predict process faults and thus allowing real time interventions in order to prevent the generation of defects related to gap and flush and their propagation to down-stream processes.
Equipping the operators in the final assembly with measurement systems able to automatically collect data and analysing the data with those coming from the earlier automatic measurement stations of the body shop area, will allow a better control of the whole production process, by adapting the final assembly stations based on the complete set of data collected in previous processing stations.
This will increase efficiency and reduce re-work by avoiding re-alignment operations, saving therefore time and reducing costs and waste.
Expected Goals
- Reduce the number of products needed to be aligned by 10%
- Improve the production costs avoiding alignment operations by 15%
- Improve the time that the operator needs to verify the product by 10%
Problem definition
For a vehicle assembly line the main quality characteristic is the correct geometrical position of all assembled parts, such as the tail gate, the doors and the lights. The alignment of the car is not only important for aesthetic reasons but also for aerodynamics, thus having a significant impact on fuel efficiency or noise perception, as examples.
Therefore, these two controls are considered very important and mandatory from a quality point of view and for this reason they are measured at different stages of the process. For each stage, specific requirements are defined and strictly controlled.
Currently, the gaps and flushes are measured automatically at several steps of the manufacturing process in the body shop area when the metal sheets are not painted yet, while in the assembly area they are measured at different stages, but manually by the operators.
Identified challenges
- The amount of geometrical complexity and the demanding quality requirements requires a deep understanding of the data. The inclusion of pre-processing and analysis of data collected at several different stages, enabling the correct correlation of data at the multi-stage level and providing recommendations on the points to be checked, are the major challenge of Volkswagen Autoeuropa pilot.
- Other significant challenge will be the introduction of a new portable, automatic measuring instrument to aid the operators in the gap and flush inspections at the assembly are, as well as allowing the automatic collection of these data, which were previously not recorded. This new instrument has to ensure a good ergonomics (easier handling and positioning of the instrument on the measurement locations), as well as, be compliant to industrial IT security standards.
Impact from openZDM technologies
