Robot park in body shop

The robots must also demonstrate flexibility in the press line. Automatic gripper changers are provided here in order to ensure that conversion from one pressed part to another takes place especially quickly and precisely. The KUKA robots make over 2.3 million spot welds and 100,000 stud welds per day, and apply more than 7,500 meters of adhesive seams. They perform their tasks quickly and with high repeatability.

Besides carrying out joining and handling tasks, the robots apply a sealing compound to the hemmed flanges of the doors before they are installed. The automation of this process allows more precise and more even application of this specially-developed sealer.

• Greater precision
  
  The state-of-the-art robot technology also ensures that the gap dimensions on the doors and trunk lid of the Fiesta model can be reduced to 3.5 mm. That is ten percent less than with our most important competitor in the same market segment. This is possible because the doors are fitted automatically by the robots, and because during production both the vehicles and the transfer pallets which serve as locating fixtures pass through the inline measuring systems.
  
  
  
• Higher weld quality
  
  Since Ford is working continuously to improve weld quality, besides pneumatic spot weld guns they also use electric motor-driven ones. When such servo guns are guided by robots, the closing motions of the gun can be defined precisely, resulting in a more gradual force build-up. Other advantages are longer electrode life, better workpiece detection, shorter cycle times and lower noise levels.
  
  
  
• High availability
  
  KUKA provides an overall availability of over 85 percent. The operational readiness of the robots themselves is more than 99.99 percent. The press lines, which also use KUKA robots, are additionally supported by teleservicing from KUKA in Augsburg.
  
  
  
• Leasing of the production systems
  
  Ford leases 50 percent of these new production systems. In doing this the company expects to develop an even closer partnership with its supplier, since they now have a common interest in operating the systems with the highest possible level of utilization. On top of that, Ford is also able to retain the financial resources for developing future models.