Assembly-finished bundles provide for optimal handling in the Ford Focus*

In cooperation with the company ITT-Industries Marsberg and AR Maschinenbau GmbH, Warburg developed the cable bender CD170 for brake and petrol lines for production of complete, assembly-finished bundles with 14 work stations for the automobile industry.

A bending plant had to be designed, where in several processing steps three different line bundles can be manufactured out of 5 different steel tubes. The line bundles are bent in multiple layers, containing petrol and brake lines and are accurately adapted to the vehicle underbody. At the same time it was to be guaranteed, that current line changes could be let in at each time during the construction and building phase. This fact demanded increased expenditure; in particular the plant mechanics were challenged here. All bend- and handling stations are constructed so that they can be customized and adjusted in several axes. As final product a bundle provided with plastic assembly clips should emerge that is ready for final assembly, where all individual parts are examined at the end of the processing steps on completeness and are traced on an integrated PC. The concept and the production of the total control system were realized by the company AR Maschinenbau and the programming by the company ITT Automotive Marsberg.

Most modern bus technology for boundless extension and fast start-up

Already at the beginning of the planning phase a decentralized automation solution was aimed at, which should be readily comprehensible and almost infinitely expandable. For decentralization fast, most modern bus technology should be installed. Simplest handling (Plug & Play) of the to-be-used bus systems should at the same time drastically minimize the expenditure of programming and start-up locally. Thus during the implementation of the main control system a PLC with a total number of approx. 900 I/O was installed. The entire material transfer was regulated from a PLC with approx. 230 I/O and the material input station with a further PLC with approx. 260 I/O. Almost all 1500 in- and outputs are interconnected with a fast 2-wire interface unit, to avoid a high wiring expenditure.

For operating and observing touch screen control terminals are used. The networking of the entire plant (three stations) takes place by using the easy to configure, intelligent Omron network, which in the max. configuration level can integrate up to 32 PLCs. An important capability characteristic of this network is the possibility of on-line programming and that all PLCs can be accessed via one interface. Just this characteristic was essential for putting this into operation and for future plant modifications. Maintenance and programming of the entire control components are thus also possible over a central PC (control stand, office). For remote maintenance a modem is integrated via the interface of the PLC. A further amount for process control has place during quality assurance. There the Omron colour sensor detects the correct allocation of the multi color assembly tie-clip for different line bundles. The final assembly and start-up was carried out in France by ITT Industries, Creutzwald. The installation was integrated into the production there with great success.

This is another good example of the Smart Technology concept.

*Ford Focus is a registered label name of the company Ford AG, Cologne