Turin-based
Comau, an Italian multinational company in the automation field, and part of Netherlands-based
Stellantic NV, the automotive manufacturing corporation, has designed and deployed a flexible body-in-white (BIW) manufacturing solution for the all-new Tonale, the first in a new generation of Alfa Romeo SUVs.
The new and enhanced 20 lines are designed to allow Alfa Romeo to assemble its mid-size Tonale in a random mix of up to four different versions while maintaining the required throughput. Fully scalable, Comau’s solution ‘will let the automotive manufacturer produce multiple brands on the same line while allowing further expansion of production in the future if and when it is needed’; and although tasked with building five completely new lines and re-tooling 15 existing lines to accommodate the new Tonale, Comau deployed the production lines in record time, despite multiple challenges.
For example, the SUV chassis is significantly larger than the compact car for which the line was originally designed, and Comau was asked to make the necessary changes without sacrificing production of either vehicle.
Transformation strategyThe team designed a transformation strategy that allowed Comau to execute the retooling operation in parallel with ‘the existing activities’, according to its ‘Zero Loss Launch’ philosophy. Comau also worked on the lines during the plant’s ‘natural downtime’, thus minimising any impact on production.
Comau’s automated and semi-automated production solution is based on the company’s proprietary ComauFlex technology, nicknamed ‘Butterfly’ due to its ‘agility’ and use of suspended robots.
This set-up allows Alfa Romeo to change or modify a specific vehicle model by adjusting the robot tooling, not the arrangement of the robots themselves: and in addition to protecting the scalability of Alfa Romeo’s initial investment, the solution is designed to enable the introduction of new models in the future for a fraction of the initial expenditure.
The entire system features 468 welding robots, 148 of which are completely new and 320 taken from existing lines. In addition to allowing Alfa Romeo to perform the complex bodyshop processes with extreme precision, the Comau-designed solution fully assembles the entire BIW from start to finish.
With the aid of three different vision systems to aid the automated picking and positioning of pieces, the robots weld, fasten and perform other activities, including spreading the semi-structural adhesive on the parts and plasma cutting during the end-of-line activities. Overall, the process involves the application of about 2,800 spot welds spots for each model.