Quality control, analysis and test development of different products concerning the automotive business

Abstract

During my 5th year INSA internship I worked in ‘Bitron Industrie España SA’. This business forms part of Bitron multinational, which has over 5000 employees and more than 13 manufacturing plants. Its market sectors include appliance, automotive, hvac and energy. Bitron Industrie España is located in Sant Adria del Besos and produces mainly automotive parts. Its clients include the major car constructors of Europe like FIAT, PSA, Volkswagen group or Ford. I worked mainly in the oil group of the R&D department; this meant I dealt with problems and subjects related to electro-valves that worked with oil. The work consisted in studying the behavior of products. Analyzing their response when submitted to different tests that were asked by the client. Study improvements in the design, things that could be done to make the product cheaper to produce, more resistant to time, etc. As it can be seen in the following report tests such as Vibrations, Salted Spray Test, Endurance tests, Switch off Energy, Insulation Resistance Test, Dielectric Rigidity Test, Cleaning tests and others were performed. Samples returned by the client were also studied. Sometimes they were being used in clients’ own tests, other times they were samples that had been used in real vehicles that had stopped working, then the reason of failure had to be studied. Production problems such as really high rejection percentages, calibrating machines or checking the functionality of handmade prototypes for the costumer to use in their tests was every day work. The following pages give an example of why those tests were done, the procedure and results. Also they show day to day work, despite not everything could be put in those pages due to time and the extension of the work, the general idea of the job can be extracted from it.