Recent orders for Durr installations at Vauxhall, IBC and ERF highlight the variety of options available to the industry today.Without conveyors, the mass production of goods would not bepossible. The automobile, one of the mainstays of transportationtoday, would still be prohibitively expensive, affordable only bythe wealthy. But at the beginning of the 20th century, Henry Fordbegan to use conveyors to produce the renowned Model A, and theautomobile industry was born.
The Automation and ConveyorTechniques Division of Durr, one of the international leaders inautomated paint finishing systems, specialises in designing,engineering, and manufacturing an extensive range of conveyorsystems for an equally extensive range of applications.
Whetheryou need a power and free, overhead chain, subtug conveyor, orany combination, these and many other types of systems offer thecapability, flexibility and reliability that's necessary ina demanding market.
Recent orders for Durr installations atVauxhall, IBC and ERF highlight the variety of options availableto the industry today.
Both the Vauxhall and IBC sites wanted toprogress to waterborne materials to comply with recentenvironmental legislation.
In Phase I, Vauxhall needed tointroduce new equipment and rearrange the layout to suit theirnewly extended spray booths.
A former repair booth had beenconverted to a production spray booth and, because the new ovenwas off-set, the existing conveyor needed to be extended, theshuttle needed to be modified, and the drive needed to be alteredto cater for the new production speed.
A variable speed drive, asopposed to a fixed speed drive, was used to give the flexibilityfor future variations in production requirements.
Phase IIinvolved a new spray booth to create Colour Line 3.
The conveyorsfor the transfer of bodies from the storage area to the new spraybooth were modified to suit the new equipment at the requiredproduction speed.
Because the new paint process required morespace, the cross-transfer was shortened to allow the booth andthe conveyor to be extended.
Two small roller conveyors wereadded to alter the route and assist transfer, and a new camlifttable allowed for a variety of different routes.
An existingcamlift was relocated to create a queuing position and reducecycle time, and an existing second camlift was repositioned in across transfer area to reduce cross-transfer and queuing time.
Aswell as switching to waterborne materials, IBC, whichmanufactures the Frontera vehicle, was also interested inimproving their level of automation.
Their overall scheme was toinstall robots for a number of processes, particularly theunderbody sealing and seam sealing areas.
This also involvedcompletely modifying the existing plant and conveyors.
While thenew conveyors at this site were supplied by Jervis-Webb to matchthe existing ones, the project was co-ordinated by Durr'sACT division.
In Phase I, one underbody sealant/PVC robot withnew conveyor system replaced many of the manual sealantoperations.
As the existing conveyor was an inverted power andfree design, a second, high-speed IPF conveyor was added thatruns on a drive chain through the new robot station.
There isapproximately a 130-second cycle time to allow for process andtransfer operations.
In Phase II, which is in progress, anexisting conveyor loop will be removed and replaced by atemporary bypass to allow production to continue while a newlonger loop with IPF conveyor is installed.
This will be for theadditional robot cells which come into operation in summer 2000for sealing both the exterior and the interior of the bodies.
Inaddition, the sealant material supply systems will also beuprated to cater for the robots and remaining manual stations andthe sealant lines extended to suit the new process stationlocations.
In the robot cells, stabilisers are used to ensureaccurate body positioning in conjunction with cameras that alterthe robot spraying trajectory, if necessary, for accurateapplication.
The Vauxhall and IBC facilities demonstrate thatDurr is able to modify and adapt existing conditions to suit theever-changing needs of automotive companies, particularly in anage of environmental legislation and alternative fuel options.The flexibility and modular build of Durr's systems ensurethat future changes can be absorbed easily.
ERF are consolidatingtheir current Sandbach and Middlewich sites into a completely newfacility in Middlewich.
The ACT division is acting as overallproject co-ordinator, and is supplying spray booths, electricaland mechanical services as well as all the conveyors thusproviding a 'one-stop' solution for ERF.
There are fivemain assembly areas: engine, axle, chassis, final, and cab.
Theengine assembly requires an overhead chain conveyor set in acontinuous loop, consisting of 12 stations with a 15-minuteindex.
The 32 positions of the axle assembly's subtugconveyor also run on a 15-minute cycle.
The engine and axle, eachseparately assembled, are manually loaded onto the chassis duringthe chassis assembly.
An option has been left open for the futurepossibility of an automated transfer from engine build stationsto the chassis line.
The chassis assembly area runs on a subtugconveyor loop with 30 positions, including a series ofoverhead-crane transfers.
When the chassis is fully assembled andthe interior has been painted, it moves on to final assembly.
The36-position rollerbed of the cab assembly transports the frame,or skid, along the rollerbed, where it also meets up with finalassembly, consisting of a 3m wide flat slat floor conveyor with12 positions and a 15-minute index.
The ERF contract highlightedthe ACT division's ability to handle complete projects, frombeginning to end, and provide a comprehensive turnkeyinstallation service that is tailored to specific customer needs.The ACT division of Durr specialises in designing, engineering,and manufacturing a wide variety of automation and conveyortechniques and systems that match the needs of the client,whether it be to adapt an existing system, to construct acomplete paint shop, or to co-ordinate a major project.