Transport systems speed automotive manufacture

GSA develops and produces transport systems for the automobile industry with drive and control technology from GE Fanuc Automation.

The company GSA develops and produces, among other things, transport systems for the automobile industry.

At Opel-Powertrain in Kaiserslautern, a company in the Fiat-GM Powertrain Group, a number of such transport systems with drive and control technology from GE Fanuc Automation are in use.

In the new engine factory, around 260 employees produce Ecotec light-metal engines.

The whole factory has been equipped with the latest manufacturing technology.

This includes, for example, crankshaft crankpin outer milling, laser groove cracking of connecting rods and engine assembly with drag torque testing.

This technology enables the production of 2000 engines per day or 460,000 engines per year.

GSA, (German Society for Special Machines and Automation Systems) is responsible for the transport system for crankshaft machining, as well as cylinder block and cylinder head machining.

The production of crankshafts is a multistage production process requiring the most varied machining procedures, such as deep-hole drilling, outside bearing cutting, fine grinding and balancing.

In the factory a total of 25 machines are involved in crankshaft production, set up consecutively in the shape of an S.

Several machines of the same type are arranged one after the other to increase production.

This requires an intelligent logistics system, for the system controls the automatic transportation of the workpieces between the machines and the cells, as well as the equipping of the machines.

Here, in particular, the drive and control technology is of special significance.

When selecting the transport system for crankshaft production, it was decided to employ portal transport.

The most important requirement was to be able to ensure that the machining process could be largely continued during a potential malfunction.

GSA was commissioned to build a portal system for transporting the workpieces during crankshaft manufacture.

By means of buffer cells and buffer belts located between the individual machining stages, it is possible to compensate for procedural disruption, such as brief machine failure or an unscheduled machine shutdown.

This achieves the necessary flexibility, which ensures for the most part the smooth production process during temporary failures.

The GSA loading portal used is based on the concept of non-stop carriage carriers (agile systems).

The workpieces are fed to or removed from the respective machining stage (machines, cells and buffers) by means of a loader.

This process allows the advance of up to three components simultaneously.

The workpieces are advanced with a feed speed of 2.16m/s on the x-axis, and up to 1.6m/s on the z-axis of the loading portals.

Owing to the characteristics of the machines, very high precision is required for feeding the workpieces.

Portal transport on the basis of "agile systems" makes complex demands on the control and drive technology.

GE Fanuc Automation, as a provider of an entire range of automation products, has been able to offer the desired individual solutions, linking them to an integral concept.

Beside a modern, networked control concept based on TCP/IP Ethernet and Profibus-DP, a high degree of positioning accuracy was demanded of the drive technology with regard to the two-axis dimensional stability.

Herein lies a significant advantage of GE Fanuc Automation's drive and control capability: a high degree of positioning accuracy with fast speed and acceleration cycles.

Digital servomotors and an amplifier of the "A Series" ensure the exact positioning of the portal transporters.

Compact design, high positioning accuracy and extremely smooth operation characterise the servomotors, with an available torque range of 1 to 140Nm.

In addition, the installation of several million similar motors worldwide spoke for itself.

The servomotors are controlled by 23 CNC positioning controls of the type "Power Mate H".

The cylinder blocks and heads are machined by various transfer machines.

Each machine has several processing stations.

The workpieces are transported between the individual machines by GSA roller and shuttle systems.

These systems are controlled by GE Fanuc PLCs of the 90-30 series.

The controls are linked with a local "Datapanel 160" operator interface, on which fault messages and information on quality control are displayed.

The PLCs communicate via Ethernet TCP/IP with the management system.

Cimplicity from GE Fanuc is used as the control software.

Cimplicity PMC (Production Management Control) reproduces the production process in real time, includes alarm functions and provides information to support the product management system.

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