Automation design for an end of tandem press line

Abstract

Many chassis parts, structural elements, safety elements and the outer parts of the vehicles are made up of embossed metal sheets. Automating this process implies not only great improvements in productivity but also in safety and final quality of the pieces. Since automating this process has many advantages, all the automotive companies have automated most processes in order to be competitive. It is, therefore, a mature and strongly competed sector. Nevertheless, there is a part of the manufacturing process which is not automated, it is the final stage when the part is finished and ready for next operations (such as welding). The aim of this project is to get a theoretical design of an automation for an end tandem press line. At the same time, the resulting automation design will be as flexible and modular as possible so it can be implemented in many different cases. The requirements assumed in this project are real customer requirements; the resulting design will satisfy specific customer requirements and will define a new ABB standard solution. ABB’s RobotStudio software will be used to define and validate the design in terms of system capacity and feasibility.