How to Become a Manufacturing Cell Fully-Automated
Without Robots: Case-Study in the Automotive
Components Industry
Volume 1 - Issue 1
F J G Silva*, W Araujo, R D S G Campilho, A Baptista and G Pinto
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- Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, Portugal
*Corresponding author:
F J G Silva, Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, Portugal
Received: September 08, 2018; Published: September 11, 2018
DOI: 10.32474/ARME.2018.01.000102
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Abstract
Productivity is a key factor for companies manufacturing parts and sets to the automotive industry. Automation plays an
important role in this matter, allowing development of entire manufacturing cells without the direct need of workers. Even in
countries where the labour cost is relatively low, it becomes necessary to improve the level of automation applied to manufacture
cells and reduce the dependence of the human labour unpredictability, also increasing the quality and reducing the costs. This
case study was developed based on an industrial request in order to improve a semi-automatic cell devoted to seat suspension
mat manufacturing. The original cell allows several automatic operations but it needs two workers for two specific operations not
considered in the initial design. Thus, new concepts of wire feeding and manipulation were developed in order to allow a better
material flow throughout the cell. The new cell was designed and built with success, allowing obtain a fully-automated system,
which leads to a better productivity and reliability of the manufacturing process.
Keywords: Fully-Automated Cells; Labour Reduction; Automation Without Robots; Seat Suspension-Mat; Automotive Industry;
Mechanical Engineering
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