Keywords
Citation
(2001), "Robot welders", Industrial Robot, Vol. 28 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2001.04928aaf.009
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2001, MCB UP Limited
Robot welders
Robot welders
Keywords Robots, Welding, Car
Several years ago, one of Detroit's big three car makers needed to build a production line for its next mid-sized luxury model. It chose Classic Design, an engineering firm in Troy, Michigan, to design the bodyside production systems. Classic's engineers used ROBCAD production engineering software by Technomatix Technologies Inc., of Herzeliya, Israel, to design, simulate, and optimise the production environment.
Soon after Classic completed the design for the original single-model production line – a task that took two years – the customer wanted to add a second model to the same line. The different models had very different architectures. Classic inserted the new model into the system, again using ROBCAD. The two main lines stayed the same, but two dedicated secondary lines were added per side.
The body-side production system consisted of two main carousel-type assembly lines, one for each side. Each main line used 18 Fanuc 420 robots. Classic programmed one robot for material handling and one for a sealing application. Engineers used the remaining 16 for spot welding and assigned each robot ten to 15 welds, using ROBCAD to verify processes. Classic determined that the robots could use the same welding guns for both car models and optimised the performance of each robot. This meant that the robots did not need to switch guns, but required two separate programs for each robot. ROBCAD was used to simulate, optimise, and program more than 800 weld points for the two main lines.
Almost every robot in Classic's production line design has backup. If a robot fails, an engineer activates backup programs created with ROBCAD to distribute the tasks to other robots in the line. Classic used ROBCAD to create all the backup programs off-line.
Recently, Classic designed the latest production line for the same client in less than one year and the latest multiple-model line in five to six months.