Automotive

Manufacturing
Processes
Overview

Tal Vagman
Directory Product Strategy

* Animations and images courtesy of Porsche, VW, GM, Ford, Renault

Background – Automotive Product Life Cycle

• New Vehicle Program

• Concept selection
• Go ahead / Abort
• Detailed design & specifications
• Development and tooling
• Manufacturing line commissioning
2-3 Years Target
• Preproduction & Launch
• Ramp up and Mass Production
• “Face lift”
• Product retirement
• Recycling

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Key Car Components (real-life example from Renault)

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Key Manufacturing Process – High Level

• Sheet Metal Stamping

• Closure subassembly • Interior parts production
• Body in White Assembly • Dashboard assembly
• Paint shop • Powertrain Production
• Body Assembly
• Final Assembly
• Powertrain & Chassis Fitting
• Inspection & testing

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Stamping

• body panels, doors, hoods, floor pans and other parts are stamped out of sheet metal
• Fully automated transfer presses cut out blanks from the metal sheets.
• Laser welding consists in assembling metal sheets each having a different thickness or strength, into one part.
• Dies are used in heavy duty stamping machines to shape the metal, trim excess, bend edges and pierce holes.
• Once the production volume is complete, the Die set are changed to switchover to the next batch.

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Various Stamping Process Operations – Animated Example

Blanking: Cutting Piece of Sheet Metal into pieces

Trimming: Cutting excess metal off the part

Stamping: Stretching the flat Blank into product

shape

Piercing: Punching necessary holes, slots in part

Flanging: Folding the edges of the part to make it

functional, hides rough edges, provide surface for
fastening

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Hundreds of Unique Sheet Metal form the Carbody

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Body Shop & Assembly Lines

• Hundreds of parts from the press shop are assembled and welded to form the car body in a highly automated process.

• Continuous line divided into preparation and subassembly lines (Closures and other subs) and main assembly line for the
Body

• About 80-90 stations with around 700 robots handling 2500-5000 weld points & seams.

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BiW Assembly Process – Animated Example

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Paint Shop

• Completely automated stage which consists of many processes.

• The vehicle body is attached to a conveyor transferring it from one operation to another.
• The body is first cleaned to a achieve a pure surface
• Several layers of anti-corrosion, primer and paint are applied using baths and paint robots.
• The body enters a drier before a layer of transparent paint is applied
• Final dry-off of the body before Light-tunnel inspection and wax

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Painting Process – Animated Example

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Powertrain & Chassis

• Engines, gearboxes and chassis systems are produced while the car body is going through the other processes

• Engines are built up from cylinder head, camshaft, crank case, and other subassemblies, then the built-up unit is fitted out
with peripheral items like the exhaust manifold, flywheel and injection pump.

• Chassis systems, complete with braking, suspension and transmission subsystems, are put together as well

• Once completed, the Powertrain and chassis systems are transferred to the vehicle assembly line for fitting.

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Final Assembly & Wedding

• Continuous line of more than 100 stations handling large number of variants using JIT
methods.

• lower automation level compared to other departments - 90 % human

conducting ~ 4000 operations

• Involves fitting out the finished car body, with seats, wheels, engine, dashboard, etc.

• Some parts come from nearby supplier plants while others travel from afar.

• The climax of the assembly process is the wedding of the engine, drive and body.

• As the wheels are mounted, the vehicle rolls into the testing area, either under its own
power or on a belt.

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Final Assembly Process – Animated Example

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Automotive Challenges and need for Quality Inspection and Process Control

• Sheet Metal parts are mostly flimsy free form objects

• A Car is assembled of thousands of parts which have strict dimensional requirements
• Deviations and deformations stack up quickly and cause assembly problems
• Production dimensional stability is hard to maintain with various production, materials, supplier ongoing changes
• Shortening Launch and time full production takes an increasing priority for successful New Model Launches

 Inline Dimensional control and automated quality solutions provide both critical 3D data collection and analysis tools to
address these issues throughout the automotive life cycle.

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