Study On Cycle Time For Body Line In Vehicle Welding Shop

Current car manufacturers are facing quick, changing and unpredictable market requirement. The productive activity of car manufactures have converted from mass production to mass customization. Different types of car will be produced in one stream line. Flexible manufacturing to orders is necessary. It will help the car manufactures boost production efficiency and competitive power. The management of cycle time is more important and complicated.Some measures are used in the body shop such as layout, field bus communication, Radio frequency identification technology, Andon system in order to lower the cycle time. Compact and high efficient logistics design and zero operation level are used in the product line that helps the workers communicate with each other.The tags of radio frequency identification technology carry the information of the body to each working position. The controller calculates the cycle time in each working position by monitoring the time of the tag.Welding robots communicate with the controller by CANopen field bus. It is the only field bus can be used in the close loop communication circuit. The robots will work more smoothly and quickly.Quick action system(Andon system) is used when the cycle time is delayed.Those previous measurements provide real data for improving the working efficiency. It is easy to find and lower the bottleneck working position. The working efficiency is increased.