A novel approach to the development of pneumatic automation to assemble
Land Rover's new Discovery 3 has helped the production line jigs to
switch on with minimal disruption, and complete the critical early months
of service with virtually no problems. The new tactic came in the shape
of a pneumatics expert, seconded from Festo, who joined the Land Rover
discovery 3 manufacturing Engineering team early in the project's life.
Following the decision to standardise on Festo pneumatic components for
the body-in-white and final assembly jigs for the new vehicle, Festo
seconded one of its automotive specialists, Martin Brooks, to become
full-time project manager based at the Solihull plant. Among the tactics
adopted were: a common pneumatic parts list; advising the automation
builders on good pneumatics design practice, and agreeing the mechanical
design and control architectures during the development cycle.
Most of the pneumatics chosen for this application came from component
families that Festo already supplies to other leading automobile
manufacturers, and which have a demonstrable reliability record in the
sector. The Interbus-S fibre optic fieldbus was used for almost all of
the pneumatic equipment, apart from a few Profibus nodes that were needed
for existing equipment.
The approach has apparently worked for Land Rover. The pneumatics systems
have now completed over four months of multi-shift use with only a
handlful of issues that were quickly resolved by the Festo-trained Land
Rover technicians. According to Mr Brooks, the project required close
co-operation with machine builders and OEMs to ensure the high
availability of automated shop floor equipment demanded by the industry.
He believes the experience has given his team a lot of insight into ways
of making future programmes such as these run efficently and to time.
Shown here is the body assembly of the Land Rover Discovery 3 being
performed by a combination of robot arms and clamping tools based on
Festo pneumatics.