Product category:
3D CAD software
News Release from: Dassault Systemes
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 06 May 2005
Software begins virtual factory journey
Tier One automotive stampings supplier ThyssenKrupp Budd has begun its virtual factory journey with the purchase of Delmia Igrip and Quest digital manufacturing solutions.
Tier One automotive stampings supplier ThyssenKrupp Budd has begun its virtual factory journey with the purchase of Delmia Igrip and Quest digital manufacturing solutions The company began its evaluation of the tools by using Igrip to study a tube-bending operation at one of its facilities, where a bottleneck was occurring at the robotic workcell that was loading and unloading the tubes at the bending machines
This article was originally published on Engineeringtalk on 29 Jan 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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The operation consisted of two material-handling robots to unload the tubes from a pallet and then load and unload the tubes into the tube benders before placing the tubes on a transfer table for the next part operation.
The Igrip simulation identified a bottleneck during one of the robotic operations.
ThyssenKrupp Budd continued feeding existing robotic programs into Igrip and then creating new "what if" scenarios to optimise the current robot cell operation.
It studied a number of options, including both the addition of capital equipment as well as changes in the existing process.
"What Igrip allowed us to do", said Jean Marc Hauss, ThyssenKrupp Budd Manufacturing Engineer, "was to quickly look at many different options".
"In addition, it verified the program in the virtual world, so we already knew it was going to work when we hit the plant floor".
The study concluded that the optimal solution involved changes to the existing layout and a reprogramming of the robot tasks.
One of the existing robots was repositioned in the cell and reprogrammed to handle additional work.
The end effector grippers were rearranged and fencing around the cell was moved.
Additionally, it was found that one of the tube-bending machines was running 10% faster than the other, so the time was equalised on both machines.
The success of this initial study has led the company to now begin implementing Delmia Quest, a 3D digital factory environment for process flow simulation, on three material-handling operations to simulate and evaluate complete assembly lines for accuracy and profitability.
"Our faith in the digital tools was rewarded in this initial Igrip study", concluded Hauss.
"With the type of process savings these tools identify, they will pay for themselves in less than a year".
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