AUTOMATION OVER BACK-BREAKING WORK
Only a year ago, six employees equipped with protective clothing, spray guns and breathing apparatus had to stand here in the paint booth. Last summer they were able to change to other positions in the paint shop. The back-break-ing work is now performed by 11 robots shrouded in white protective material in a completely revamped paint shop environment. Five of them open doors and hoods, and six spray an accurately dosed volume of paint onto the specified areas in the interior of the car body. In the preceding section, four other new Dürr robots meanwhile apply the base coat to the exterior of the car body.
The modernization of the paint line at Ford’s plants in Cologne was one of the most sophisticated and challenging conversion orders executed by Dürr last year. During the four-week plant shutdown, the legacy systems were to be completely removed, with new booths and a total of 15 robots being installed.
This was a genuine challenge – after all, the paint shop had to be back in pro-duction again by August 19. A delay of even a few hours would have prevented the factory’s scheduled production launch.
The conversion of paint lines is a key trend in the automotive industry.
Carmakers are gradually replacing their legacy paint lines with automated lines featuring flexible robots that apply the paint with extremely high accuracy.
This is important for door sills, for instance, where Ford has dispensed with the need for primer since the conversion. While this is possible without any loss in quality, the work must be executed with extreme precision. “Manually, you just can’t manage that,” says Hans-Jörg Stapel, head of the process department at Ford. A robot certainly can. By opting for this method, Ford managed to substantially reduce its consumption of paint and cleaning agents.
Over 50 people were involved in the conversion project, both Dürr’s own employees and specialists from partner companies. Daniel Pejkovski says he knows only few companies that can plan and execute a project of this kind.
For him there is no doubt: “I’d certainly give the job to Dürr again.”
A conversion project for a paint line is a question
of trust and confidence. An intervention of this
kind is akin to open-heart surgery.
ECO / THE DÜRR MAGAZINE Update
29
OPEN-HEART SURGERY
A conversion project for a paint line is essentially a question of trust and confi-dence. An intervention of this kind is akin to open-heart surgery. “Each step needs to be precisely planned and implemented,” says Stephan Kochendörfer, Dürr’s project manager responsible for the mechanical work carried out in the robot area. Even a small oversight can jeopardize the entire project schedule.
This is why the detailed planning operations were launched within days after the contract had been awarded in January 2013. Many questions went through Stephan Kochendörfer’s mind at the time. Will the robots actually fit inside the paint booth? Where are the control cabinets going to be located? How long do the safety distances need to be? At the same time, his colleague Bertram Kempf, responsible for control technology, was already thinking of robot control sys-tems and suitable programs.
Daniel Pejkovski from Ford in Cologne, Germany.
He was the main contact for Dürr during the upgrade in the summer of 2013.
ECO / THE DÜRR MAGA ZINE Update
30
Fifteen robots paint the Ford Fiesta on the completely revamped base coat line (top).
The finished bodies gleam in quality control (right).
ECO / THE DÜRR MAGAZINE Update
31
Dürr is well prepared for projects of this kind. “We use standardized compo-nents that can be adjusted to specific customer requests,” says Bertram Kempf.
This saves time. The paint process desired by the customer is tested at an early stage at the Dürr Technology Center in Bietigheim-Bissingen. In addition, Dürr carries out a virtual commissioning run with the aid of a simulation system.
This ensures that all control elements are correctly programmed, electronic interfaces are fully functional and plant visualization is correctly executed.
This enables problems to be nipped in the bud.
It was clear at a very early stage that a number of tricky and challenging tasks were in store for the planners in Cologne. Georg Hoppe, responsible for con-version of the paint booths: “We had to raise the low ceiling above the paint line to avoid the robots colliding with it while at work. In addition, we tore down 28 meters of booth walls, installed new walls and relocated workstations along the paint line.”
Before installation, the old plant and equipment had to be removed. Yet the passages in Ford’s factory halls are narrow and winding, with small staircases along the way. Certainly no place for the impatient. “Our people had to cut tons of old plant and equipment into small pieces, most of them having to be carried away by hand,” says Georg Hoppe.
The conversion work was handled by a shift service operating 24/7. Each minute was precious. The few time buffers available were reserved for unforeseen difficulties. One of them was lurking in the underground of the paint hall. It was missing the steel support beams that had been drawn into the old construction blueprints. Continuing the construction work without these supports was out of the question. A race against time began, Stephan Kochendörfer recalls. “We had to get hold of additional steel as quickly as possible.”
In other words, even more material was needed. Ten tractor-trailers had already carted huge quantities to the construction site. Dürr used five and a half kilo-meters of cable, 14 control cabinets and a total of 48 tons of steel in only four weeks. “When I saw all this material stacked up here for the first time, it became clear to me that this was going to be a real challenge,” says Bertram Kempf.
But that’s what projects of this kind are all about. After all, a solution had always been found in the past.
Hoppe, Kempf and Kochendörfer have all been working for Dürr on construction sites across the globe for at least one and a half decades now. A job that chal-lenges them not only mentally but also physically. For instance, while the work at Ford was being carried out, the ventilation in the paint hall had to be switched off. “We had temperatures of up to 35 °C in here”, says Bertram Kempf.
Although all three of them certainly felt the heat, literally, they all agree that, in collaboration with the Ford team, this project turned out to be a genuine success story. Rene Wolf, who is in charge of Fiesta production at Ford, concurs:
“The level of cooperation with Dürr was exemplary.”