Smartplant: assembly line and automated end-of-line for automotive cockpits
A semi-automatic assembly line + fully automatic EOL (end of line) control with automated vision, complete with traceability system to assemble car cockpits, delivered for a third-party automotive corporate.
My role in this project
A very interesting project because it concentrates many of my professional skills and thaose of the other members of the Taiprora team (who designed and developed this project).
Specifically, I was involved in many fields, which I will try to summarize briefly below:
- concept and editing of the demo video of the Smartplant project, to be shown to the final customer during the approval phase: the video shows the entire project and activities to be carried out by the development team;
- analysis and desing of the user interface of all the software to be developed in the project;
- conversion, optimization and adaptation of 3d models of car parts (original supplied by the customer), rendering and conversion into 2D images to be implemented within the visual and dynamic management software of the assembly flow of the components;
- copywriting of the operator manual in English language for the correct use of the all supplied softwares;
- marketing activities: creation of PDFs of the case-project (in Italian and English), including interview with key-users, copywriting and graphic composition (via Adobe Illustrator);
- marketing: promotional video-case video-editing of the project (watch it below), for which I have created the copywriting, collected the photos and videos produced by colleagues within the Customer's production plant (in the Czech Republic). This video has been edited in Adobe Premiere video-editing software.
- I completed the marketing operations by updating the Taiprora youtube channel with the video made and the company website by adding videos and PDF case-histories in the news and services sections.
The project in short
The project consisting of multiple types of intervention and supply: from software to hardware, to cover the assembly needs of components, also the possibility of moving them automatically from one workstation to another, and finally to quality control and tracking of the work procedure and the final result. The safety of the plant was also one of the points on which the design was based.
The components of the Smartplant assembly area are therefore the following:
- 7 in-line assembling stations equipped with screwing tools with torque and angle checks, traceability tools (barcode scanner);
- 2 additional stations for reworks;
- A Fleet consisting of 12 AGVs, automated guided vehicles (max load 600Kg each);
- 1 full-automated boxed-EOL check station with 2 antropomorphic robots equipped with 2 smart-cameras for automatic-vision checks;
- 1 final check station with operator;
- 1 IoT controlling system based on 3 webcams for safety, help and maintainance purposes;
- 12 all-in-one touch-PCs with a software developed by Taiprora assists the operator in his workcycle;
- 3 softwares to manage and track every single action done in the entire area;
- Multilevel-based RFID System with EKS Keys to accessing on working areas.
The software system communicates constantly with 2 corporate's Systems:
- MES, to receive production information;
- TRACE to send both assembly and EOL check information (statistics about productivity, scraps, reworks, traceability, etc).
Some additional information
A Fleet of 12 AGVs automatically moves from a station to another each trolley, that includes a single-axis rotating nest where cockpits are placed during assembling operations.
The entire assembling area has been re-designed and the complete workcycle as well. Taiprora provided all hardware devices (hardware, accessing doors, robots, trolleys, agvs, plcs, cameras, etc) and designed and coded all three softwares needed to manage the entire workflow.