ESU - new manufacturing control systems

Citation

(1999), "ESU - new manufacturing control systems", Industrial Lubrication and Tribology, Vol. 51 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ilt.1999.01851eab.005

ESU - new manufacturing control systems

ESU - new manufacturing control systems

Keyword: Manufacturing

Every day, through trade journals and product mailings, we are bombarded with a diverse selection of equipment for controlling, measuring or improving the quality of our manufactured products. In truth, the costs involved in directly employing the specialist know-how and manpower to integrate these solutions into existing plant are prohibitive for most companies. Although the technology is widely available on the market today, each manufacturing process or product requires a very different solution.

More and more companies are turning to suppliers like ESU in Manchester who have recently designed three very different small plants for the automotive industry. The first of these requirements was for the integration of an additional stage into the manufacture of interior car doors where, with great accuracy, a special lubricant must be applied to two areas of the door before fitting the grab handle. The system had to be capable of recognising different door designs and spray patterns and reacting accordingly.

In a design study for a similar application on a different product, the customer required positive confirmation of the presence of a similar lubricant (a clear solution) and this was achieved using photo-recognition equipment. An intelligent digital camera was programmed to check images for complete and uniform coverage in order to pass or fail the product. The camera was pre-programmed using a PC, which would be removed when the camera is online in production.

In the third and most challenging of these recent projects, ESU's customer, a manufacturer of automotive sunroofs, required additional equipment for a stage in its quality control procedures to measure accurately the efficiency of the safety mechanisms built into the sunroofs. Increasing market pressure and safety awareness now dictates that automatic sunroofs should halt movement on detection of a restrictive object such as a hand or child's head. It is easy to see that such a critical safety issue necessitates the use of accurate sensing equipment and the effectiveness of those sensors must be the subject of strict quality controls.

The solution was designed, built and integrated into existing processes by ESU and required not only a knowledge of robotics and computer programming, but the necessary skills to build the mechanical equipment used to handle the sunroofs and measuring devices.

For this application, two specially designed measuring rollers are mounted on an industrial articulated robot arm, which is controlled remotely. The robot is programmed to pass these rollers along the edges of the sunroof with a constant load checking the resistance values of a switch at approximately 1,000 positions on each edge. The robot then returns to points of high resistance along the edge to check the resistance against a varying load. All the information measured can be graphically displayed, stored, printed and then transferred to the customer's computer system.

With almost 30 years' experience in designing and manufacturing bespoke equipment, ESU was able to take three particular processing problems and create an individual solution for each, and then integrate this solution into existing processes on site.

For further information please contact Beverley Cheyne. Tel: +44 (0) 1457 863511.