Product category:
Vision and scanning systems
News Release from: Cognex UK | Subject: Checkpoint 900 vision system
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 12 November 2002
Vehicle Inspection Application may be
UK's Biggest
A robot-enabled Cognex vision system is inspecting cross car beams for the V184 Ford Transit at the rate of 40 per hour, at the factory of Lander Automotive in Woodgate near Birmingham.
A robot-enabled Cognex vision system is inspecting cross car beams for the V184 Ford Transit at the rate of 40 per hour, at the factory of Lander Automotive in Woodgate near Birmingham The system is thought to be one of the most sophisticated automated inspection systems in the UK and is based on a Cognex Checkpoint 900 vision system which checks 22 points on the 1.7metre beam, with a fuller inspection covering 49 points once every hour
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 17 Sep 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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Lander Automotive designs and manufactures a wide variety of Tubular and Seating components for the European Automotive industry and produced cross car beams for the previous Ford Transit, now manufactured in Eastern Europe.
In operating a policy of improving techniques, Lander reviewed the production method and decided to implement an automated inspection system for the new V184 Transit contract.
The previous beam was manually gauged so the way forward, according to Project Engineer Ian Doody, was an automated alternative based on a vision system.
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The 'cross car beam' fits across the vehicle at the front of the driver's compartment.
It is designed to give lateral strength but it also carries the fascia panels, glove compartments and various other items, which screw into self-tapping 'cell clips' fitted into brackets welded on the beam.
The beam is manufactured by bending a steel tube on a CNC machine, and then mig-welding on brackets using two automated welding systems followed by the manual insertion of I/P (Instrument Panel) retaining clips.
The finished beam is then placed into the robot inspection cell, where an ABB robot arm fitted with a Cognex camera undertakes a full dimensional study of 22 points along the beam, as well as ensuring that the I/P clips are present and inspecting the weld studs.
All measurements are taken relative to car line position.
The Checkpoint 900 software makes a series of decisions based on these measurements and decides if the beam is within acceptable tolerances.
In the rare occurrence that it is not, the beam is removed for re-work.
A fuller inspection is performed every 40 beams to provide a more detailed picture of production trends.
When the Vision system accepts good beams, they are ink marked as OK and a label is automatically printed giving the beam number, the weld cell involved, the manufacturing date and a part number designating LHD or RHD.
To give an idea of the size of the program, about 70 pages of A4 paper are used in a print out.
This is an unusually large Checkpoint program because it is able to inspect a virtually unlimited number of inspection points on both left-hand and right-hand beam versions.
Any of the inspected points can be one of seven types of inspection (e.g clip presence, stud position, hole position).
Parameterisation is done by 'training' the robot on a 'golden part', the robot moving to a particular point, issuing a 'train' command and Checkpoint running an 'inspect' and recording the results internally.
Then, when a 'run' command is subsequently issued on a production unit the live results can be compared to the results gained at the 'train' point and any differences compared.
A pass/fail result is then sent to the robot controller.
The Checkpoint programme runs on a local PC and all production data is retained for analysis.
Three times each day the cell is stopped for a few minutes to allow the operator to trigger an export of data into a spreadsheet and an upload to the company server where it is stored and then archived for future reference and process improvements.
Anyone with access privileges can study production data from any shift or even for an individual beam, which is useful for analysing productivity and trends.
Approximately 4MB of data is stored per shift.
One of the core beliefs at Lander is continuous improvement.
To improve, we need to know our starting point, which is in this instance, is provided by the Cognex camera system currently in use.
The information is collected and reviewed to establish exactly where our trends are and the necessary steps are taken to ensure that our process is constantly moving forward.
Since mid-1999 Ian Doody has been the Project Engineer with the V184 project and Lander Automotive knew that the only way forward for the new beam was an automated inspection routine using a robot-based camera.
Once a specification was clearly understood, a trawl was made of the marketplace to find a vision system suitable for the job and Cognex shone through as being the best.
Today's systems offer unbelievable value compared to some years ago and what Cognex offered proved far superior to all competitors.
Ian Doody wrote the specification for the inspection system.
The programme was then prepared by Cognex engineers and commissioned at ABB Robotics in Milton Keynes.
Ian has since taken the Cognex training courses and can handle updates and refinements he including an addition of a Visual Basic front page for the application, to make things simpler for the operator.
Start of production was in January 2000 and since then the system has operated 24 hours a day almost without respite. Request a free brochure from Cognex UK ...
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