A customer who provides automobile parts and assemblies to a major automotive company was faced with a lack of qualified welders capable of producing the parts required to fulfill production increases while maintaining part quality. Their business was expanding and they were concerned with part production quality and throughput.
The customer sent sample parts to T-W’s Research and Development Laboratory for analysis and to design and qualify a new welding process to meet their weld strength and quality constraints. In addition, the customer turned to T-W’s Automated Assembly Group to concept and design a new automated assembly system to meet their production demands. Part loading, orientation, cycle times and part change-over times were critical factors for the customer to achieve Lean Manufacturing practices.
After thorough laboratory analysis, including micro-section analysis of weld penetration and destructive testing to prove weld quality, the welding process was qualified and approved by the customer.
In addition, an automated assembly design including dual robotic welding systems with integral vision part orientation system, part feeding and fixture tooling was conceived and offered to the customer. The system included MIG welding of the parts, automatic part feeding and orientation with a part escapement system coupled to a conveying and packaging system to complete the assembly process.
The customer purchased and incorporated the system into their manufacturing facility. The complete automated assembly system was tested and qualified in T-W’s factory before shipment. This included Production Part Approval Process (PPAP) testing and Lean Six Sigma quality practices. The automated system enabled them to increase their production output while maintaining the highest level of part quality to satisfy their end customer’s requirements
A customer who supplies transportation equipment direct to consumers was faced with the need to improve their resistance welding processes for critical parts incorporated into their finished products. The customer needed a better set down on their existing resistance welds to allow for a coating process to be used to increase the longevity of their product.
The customer sent samples of their parts to T-W’s Research and Development Laboratory for analysis and to qualify a new welding procedure. After welding the parts using resistance seam welding and thorough laboratory analysis including micro-section analysis of weld penetration and destructive testing to prove weld quality, the welding process was qualified and approved by the customer.
The customer purchased and incorporated the resistance welding machine into their manufacturing factory. The machine was tested and qualified in collaboration with the customer’s personnel in T-W’s factory before shipment. Multiple part runs were processed prior to shipment as part of the qualification process.