Experience in projects for the automotive industry.
As a company located in Silesia, we have completed many projects in the country and abroad for the automotive industry. Robotic press lines, all types of car body transports or assembly or KTL and paint lines are a well-known environment for which we have carried out many projects.
Automation of Press Lines.
Project objective was to control a full press line with use of PLCs, industrial robots and operator panels. Press lines usually consisted of 4 to 7 presses with industrial robots used to transfer parts from press to press.
Control system was designed to cover a whole production cycle starting from automatic blank feeding at the beginning of the line and transfer of formed parts between presses. Parts transfer between presses was executed by means of industrial robots. The production speeds obtained by such a line are up to 10 strokes per minute. This means, that within 6 seconds weighting several tons press must do a stroke and formed part must be replaced with a new one.
Quality of the press line is estimated not only by the production speed but also speed of product line change is taking into consideration. To prepare line for new part type it is necessary to replace dies in all presses and tools for all robots. Automatic dies/tools change was included in control system delivered by SimTec. An average time of changeover did not exceed 10 minutes for the entire line.
Technological nests automation in automated car production lines and body transport.
SimTec’s engineers have experience in software applications for different transport areas and technological nests in car industry. An example may be automated nest for delivery of sound deadening mats. Our task was to deliver, based on VIN (Vehicle Identification Number), the proper set of mats to the mounting area. The system had to recognize in advance the body type from VIN written on skid’s data carrier (of Moby type). After identification of body type an operator in storage area receives precise light information which set of mats is necessary. Then he collects them and puts on tray on a conveyor system. The set of mats must reach mounting place exactly synchronized with the body skid. Correct timing is verified in mounting area due to data carriers (of Moby type) attached to trays with mats – Moby tag keeps data of vehicle which is destination for transported mats. Total system was realized based on Industrial PC with software PLC WinAC RTX and HMI ProTool package.
Another example of implementation for car industry may be a system for adhesive bonding of body side bars. Similar like in previous example the operator needs to receive in advance information about arriving type of car body. The information is read from VIN localized on skid’s data carrier Moby. Thanks to our system the proper side bar is waiting for next car body and is ready to be automatically mounted. The software was prepared based on PLC S7-400 responsible for body’s transportation that communicates with central managing system ANDON. HMI system was prepared based on Siemens operator panel and WinCC FLEX.
Our engineers have also many years of experience in automation of complete SKID transportation lines for different areas in technological cycle of car assembling. Our software was prepared for body welding areas, body-painting areas as well as in final assembling areas.
KTL transport line of SKID for car semi-trailer production
One of our last projects is integrated SKID transport system on KTL line producing car semi-trailers at company WIELTON S.A. Based on advanced and sophisticated control system TIA Portal and programable controllers S7-1500 Safety/Technology, operator panels and superior system SCADA WinCC, was created central control system for transport, tracing, identification and storage of car semi- trailers. The system was equipped in Technology and Safety PLC Simatic CPU 1516T-3PN/DP. It cooperates with distributed on Profinet components that participants are also WLAN AP (Access Points) and CL (Clients) of Scalance family as well as distributed IO ET200SP modules and RFID antennas that are tracing and identifying products. The transport system bases on Sinamics G120 drives that cooperate with absolute encoders on Profinet. Due to WinCC Classic installation and optional package DataMonitor, the remote access to the production screens and production reports distributed by the means of e-mail become available. Product tracing is realized by the means of RFID Tag's working in high temperature environment 280st.C, that are mounted on each transporting SKID. The TIA Portal system perfectly integrate all above mentioned automation components into one system that facilitates and improves diagnostics.