The Customer:

Lear Corporation is an international supplier of automotive components headquartered in Southfield (Michigan), USA. In its Bersebrück plant, in Germany, the company, which specializes in automotive interiors, produces mainly plastic components.

The Task:

Production of fuse holders; including inserting bushes in the mould and post-mould slide assembly. Only 100% OK parts are to leave the production cell.

The Problem:

Manual assembly results in a very high reject rate. The completely automated process with 100% quality control aims to eliminate this problem.

The Solution:

Complete manufacturing cell from a single contract partner

The Outcome:

KraussMaffei supplied a compact manufacturing cell integrating a KM 110-520 C2 injection moulding machine with a linear robot mounted on the fixed platen. The gripper of the linear robot picks up and inserts a bushing in the mould. After injection moulding, the robot picks the basic module of the fuse holder from the mould, removes the sprue and deposits the module in a cooling station. To save space, the cooling station is located above the overhead safety guard over the injection moulding machine. The robot then picks up one of the already cooled modules and transfers it, correctly aimed, to an assembly station. Here three locking slides are inserted simultaneously into the module in a precisely defined position. A final slide is then assembled into the module and the gripper places the completed fuse holder on a conveyor belt. The process monitoring system controls the injection moulding process and all assembly steps. It provides real-time display of, for instance, the slide positioning process. The quality assurance systems identify defective parts and divert them out of the process. Because only OK parts leave the manufacturing cell, the Lear Corporation can reckon with 100% availability from conveyor belt. The operation of all automated components is synchronized. This increases availability, results in a stable production process and optimizes cycle time utilization.