Motoman enters body-in-white welding sector at Honda

Citation

(2003), "Motoman enters body-in-white welding sector at Honda", Industrial Robot, Vol. 30 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2003.04930aaf.004

Motoman enters body-in-white welding sector at Honda

Motoman enters body-in-white welding sector at Honda

Keywords: Automotive, Robots, Motoman, Welding, Honda

TAIKAI is Japanese for “company innovation” and a word that has been very good news for robot suppliers following Honda’s decision to implement such a project within a number of factories worldwide. One of these is in Swindon where approximately 130 additional Motoman robots were recently installed in the two production plants, increasing the number of this supplier’s robots on site to 200 (Plate 4).

Says Gordon Williams, Department Manager at Honda Engineering Europe, the car group’s autonomous engineering department, “The majority of the robots are for body-in-white spot welding applications. Compared with older robots that we have redeployed to less demanding applications, the new robot models have helped to improve the flexibility of line operation as well as the quality of our car bodies.”

Plate 4 The number of Motoman robots in use at Honda’s Swindon plant has more than doubled to 200 following the car manufacturer’s worldwide “Taikai”, or company innovation initiative

One plant is currently devoted to producing the 3- and 5-door Civic. The other turns out bodies for both the Accord and the CRV, or compact recreational vehicle, destined for domestic consumption and export to the USA.

There are many applications for Motoman robots on Honda’s site in Swindon. They start in the main press department where robots are employed for feeding sheet metal into the power presses and off-loading and stacking car body panels.

The panels and subassemblies are welded to produce the body-in-white using principally spot but also MIG (arc) welding processes. Further down the line, Motoman is again in evidence controlling Honda robots applying sealant to the windscreen aperture, with a Motoman robot finally putting the glass in place.

Other robots are used for application of under-body protection and in the paint facility there are further Motoman units that date back to the early 1990s.

Spot welding is by far the most arduous task for the robots and they are required to perform at Honda over two shifts, 5 days a week. Gordon Williams says that they achieve at least 10 years’ service life from Motoman robots even in a welding environment, which equates to around 60,000 h.

The supplier’s latest UP Series of 6-axis, articulated-arm robots have advantages over their predecessors in that they have larger working envelopes and a flexible conduit which routes all services from the base to the upper arm, eliminating trailing hoses and cables which may become snagged. Direct drive is provided on all axes using the robot manufacturer’s (Yaskawa’s) own drive motors, allowing greater speed, accuracy and reliability.

New servo weld guns are being used at Swindon rather than conventional pneumatic guns. Their operation constitutes a seventh CNC axis and forms part of the programs created using Motoman’s latest XRC 27-axis controller.

It is noteworthy that Yaskawa servo drives and motion control systems are also used on the transfer lines at Honda, controlling line speed at up to 2 m/s as well as jig and fixture operation.

For further information, please contact: John D’Angelillo, MD, Motoman Robotics (UK) Ltd, Unit 2, Johnson Park, Wildmere Road, Wildmere Industrial Estate, Banbury, Oxfordshire, OX16 3JU, UK. Tel: 01295 272755; Fax: 01295 267127; E-mail: johnd’angelillo@motoman.co.uk; Web site: www.motoman.se