Conveyors have been used since the start of automotive manufacturing in the early 20th century. Henry Ford leveraged them while standardizing the assembly line, and they’ve been a manufacturing mainstay ever since. Throughout the last 100-plus years, conveyors have evolved with the vehicles they help build.
Advancements in belt, chain, and rail materials have allowed these critical tools to optimize the assembly of high-volume products such as transmissions, engine blocks, and brakes.
Battery manufacturers leverage a variety of high-speed and traditional conveyors to meet and adjust to shifting market demands.
In today’s electric vehicle (EV) production lines, conventional conveyors are necessary when navigating technical pack assembly steps like attaching cooling houses, routing wire harnesses, and adding junction boxes. These are complex steps that require the touch and dexterity of a human to complete. Conveyors are useful supplements in transferring packs along intricate portions of an assembly line.
Additionally, because of increased industry adoption of lean manufacturing principles, conveyor-based transfer systems can support their modularity and be reconfigured to adapt to changing throughput demands and space availability. However, while conventional conveyors continue to provide value within EV production, the next generation of transfer systems offers one critical advantage: speed. Advanced conveyor systems combine high speed with pallet-based transport, and that’s not all. They’re also getting smarter.
Picking up the pace
One significant aspect of high-speed conveyance is it allows for the pack assembly on the pallet itself — eliminating the need for secondary locating mechanisms at various stops along the line. This requires high precision and, most importantly, reduces the transfer time between those process steps. Conveyors that can move pallets faster between stations are critical to reaching elevated productivity goals while eliminating non-value-added transfer time.
The way these high-speed conveyors are powered is another reason they’re increasingly being incorporated into EV manufacturing. There’s an ongoing transition from pneumatically actuated systems to more sustainable electromechanical ones. Conventional conveyors rely on pneumatic components to lift and lower products. In contrast, electromechanical conveyors use magnets to create a more energy-efficient system by avoiding pressure drops, reducing compressor run time, and minimizing maintenance.
The volume targets for battery pack manufacturers are an important consideration here. Regardless of the benchmark OEMs must meet, speed will undoubtedly be the critical component in attaining it successfully. And smarter, faster conveyance will be a necessary manufacturing tool for getting there.
A data-driven world
Design software plays an critical role in identifying the ideal conveyors to integrate with existing processes while optimizing the space allotted.
While the attraction of advanced high-speed transfer systems is clear, manufacturers can sometimes overlook a crucial element of their implementation: data monitoring. The way conveyors communicate with a SCADA system should be rooted in operational diagnostics.
Manufacturers benefit from real-time data in identifying and addressing potential bottlenecks in their process and mitigating potential disruptions.
Equally important is the in-process quality monitoring of the cells. Every EV manufacturer strives for the highest percentage of sellable product that comes off the line, but they also understand that a portion is scrapped and recycled. Most manufacturers agree that 10% is an acceptable scrap rate, but some are operating at 15 to 20%, with others as high as 50%, which can devastate productivity.
Traceability is critical throughout a line, and smart conveyors can represent a consistent link between the end-of-line quality and upstream processes so that OEMs can improve their percentage of useable packs.
Hybrid solutions
However, with shifting consumer demands and evolving automation solutions, EV manufacturers are challenged to balance relying on established manufacturing systems and incorporating newer, advanced technology. Currently, there’s a hybrid manufacturing environment that still calls for traditional belt, chain, or powered-roller conveyors, as well as the newer high-speed transport systems for on-the-fly processing and transfer time reduction.
It’s an interesting microcosm of old and new systems, which will continue to play a pivotal role in optimizing manufacturing efficiency. Vendors who offer a seamless integration of transfer technologies enable OEMs to maximize productivity while keeping up with market demands in today’s EV manufacturing environment.
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