Working Together to Develop an Effective Assembly
Posted on 02/22/2017 | by The Orbitform Blog Team
A tier two automotive supplier asked Orbitform to design and build several custom workstations to assemble the drum winders, cables, and other components associated with the window regulator sub-assembly of an automotive door module the supplier was building.
This project presented many challenges associated with:
Cycle time requirements
Quality assurance factors
Operator safety considerations
Model to model changeover time limit
Lead time allotted to design and build the assembly equipment
The Orbitform engineering team was able to achieve these design constraints by successfully designing, project managing and finally building several custom product assembly machines to perform the following tasks: winding of the cable assembly by incorporating a servo-motor and a gearbox on a z-axis slide with special gear engagement tooling, greasing of the window drum in a grease nest, compressing springs with an actuator, and installing spring retainer plates, all while verifying part presences prior to completing each assembly operation.
The interior door module assembly machines were outfitted with light curtains, guarding, a heavy duty fabricated machine base, interchangeable fixture plates, error proofing elements, component presence sensing, and complete electric controls. The custom door sub-assembly machine is capable of assembling several different door modules with a changeover time between models of one (1) minute or less with no tools required to implement the changeover.
The Orbitform solutions lab was also called into action during the concept creation and initial design phases of this project as some of the assembly operations proved to be tricky to accomplish. Orbitform's team of lab technicians and assembly process experts were able to outline the best assembly sequence of events and assembly methods to conquer the mission.
This project was a good example of Orbitform and our customer working together to develop an efficient, ergonomic, and effective custom assembly machine to put together the different components of the automotive window regulator drum winder.