Comau’s flexible solutions drive JMC Ford’s high-end pickup manufacturing

The Challenge

In 2021, JMC Ford established a new production line at its Xiaolan plant in Jiangxi province to manufacture high-end pickup trucks for the Chinese market. Unlike typical passenger vehicles, pickups are produced in smaller volumes, necessitating a highly flexible production line capable of accommodating various models and configurations. JMC Ford’s decision to leverage this new line to better address the market’s demand for diversified and personalized products.

Production precision was crucial, as each weld and component required meticulous positioning to ensure the final product’s structural integrity and safety. Moreover, as demand for high-end pickups surged, enhancing production efficiency became essential to reduce cycle times and increase output. This required ongoing optimization of production processes and the adoption of advanced automation technologies to most effectively meet market demands.

The Solution

To tackle these challenges, Comau engineers designed and implemented an advanced body assembly line that significantly enhances the flexibility and efficiency of high-end pickup truck manufacturing. By replacing the traditional combination of welding guns and grippers with an integrated system incorporating both welding and tightening guns, the need for frequent tool changes was minimized. This upgrade not only increased the production line’s flexibility and efficiency but has also reduced equipment investment and maintenance costs.

In addition, Comau developed a flexible and removable fixture loading table that can be easily reconfigured for different assembly tasks and parts. This design reduces line changeover times and tooling investment, optimizes workflow, and improves product quality. The comprehensive manufacturing solution also features Comau’s OpenGate system, which ensures geometrical accuracy while granting the inherent flexibility to handle multiple model configurations and an aggressive average switching cycle time of 50 seconds.

Comau’s body-in-white welding solution integrates advanced technologies to improve welding accuracy and stability. The use of in-line pallet measurement technology ensures calibration accuracy within 0.05mm for each pallet, guaranteeing reliability and uniformity throughout the production line. Furthermore, adhesive vision inspection technology provides real-time monitoring of the adhesive application process, ensuring consistent and precise adhesive dispensing, which in turn enhances the quality of the application. The deployment of vision-guided body side picking technology allows robots to precisely locate and pick side components, thereby increasing picking accuracy and consistency. Lastly, precision cart vision guidance technology ensures that carts deliver parts to exact positions with an accuracy of up to 0.1mm during the loading process.

To meet the high demands of production efficiency, both the mainline and the floor line are equipped with high-speed roller beds and trolley conveyor systems, which enable fast transport and precise positioning of workpieces. The roller bed’s transport speed reaches up to 100 meters per minute—twice as fast as traditional shuttle systems. The use of traveling fixtures eliminates the need for base-plate fixtures, which in turn streamlines the processes and enhances precision in workpiece positioning during transport, thus shortening production cycles. This innovative conveying method also reduces dependence on manual intervention, minimizing errors and delays caused by human factors, and further boosting overall production line efficiency.