When Nissan, in its drive for continuous improvement, sought to ramp up throughput at its Sunderland plant, SMC Pneumatics helped to provide the company with an innovative solutionIncreasing throughput at what is already Europe's most productive car manufacturing plant might seem like an awesome task. But when Nissan, in its drive for continuous improvement, sought to ramp up throughput at its Sunderland plant, SMC Pneumatics (UK) Ltd helped to provide the motor company with an innovative and highly successful solution. SMC, from its UK headquarters at Milton Keynes, has developed an innovative pure pneumatic control panel for the operation of Nissan's special trackside shuttles at Sunderland.
These shuttles enable assembly workers fast and easy access to parts and tools, without time being absorbed through heavy lifting and carrying of equipment to each vehicle as it comes down the line.
The shuttles attach themselves to the track, thereby automatically matching track speed and detach to return to the start point as work at each station is completed.
Each man can now work rapidly at his track station, with all parts and tools presented automatically by the shuttle within comfortable reach (even inside the vehicle).
At the end of each station, with all tasks completed more easily, each shuttle automatically returns to its start point to meet the next vehicle, whilst the operator walks back to the start position.
"These shuttles are a highly innovative production tool and together with the control panels they are amongst the most efficient, low-cost automation initiatives we have introduced.
Our primary drivers for developing the shuttles have been the combined benefits of better operator working environment and accelerated productivity.
Without exception the results have been outstanding," said Nissan's Micra Final Assembly Kaizen Supervisor Keith Tremble, who has had a key role in the development of the shuttle concept.
Some of the new shuttles recently installed are fitted with universal SMC controls, enabling Nissan to standardise to a single type of shuttle system as opposed to the three earlier variants that had been installed at Sunderland, thereby also improving operational and maintenance efficiency across the site.
Nissan employs a production system whereby any variant of a particular model from Nissan's three main vehicles Micra, Primera and the new Almera could be sent down the two assembly lines at any given moment and the new shuttles have played an instrumental role in achieving this increased production flexibility.
The control panels applied to the Nissan shuttles on each production line were initially conceived by SMC, with their regional control systems engineer working in close co-operation with Nissan's engineers.
The concept was further developed and designed, built and tested entirely in-house by SMC at the company's Milton Keynes UK headquarters within ISO 9001 standards.
Nissan's Kaizen philosophy called for pure pneumatics to be used to avoid additional cables in the plant, as Nissan wanted to maintain the rigorous health and safety standards they had established.
Each shuttle process varies in detail according to each stage of assembly along the track and the tasks required of the operator but essentially the control principle is identical.
A wide selection of SMC actuators and valves from the company's vast range have been utilised.
SMC's attention to detail even extended right down to the filters attached to each panel to extract oil from the lubricated air system, to prevent oil vapour entering the atmosphere so that it can be disposed of in accordance with recommended health and safety practice.
In using pure pneumatics, SMC developed a distinctive method of re-programming the control panels with a series of pipes that can be re-configured across a range of connections to provide for a highly flexible range of operating and functional options.
Each panel is provided with logic diagrams and drawings which clearly and succinctly indicate how each panel's programs can be changed quickly and easily.
Nissan also holds a complete parts list.
The panels incorporate a wide range of important features, including emergency stop functions, whilst counting operational cycles.
In the unlikely occurrence fault finding and problem diagnosis is made easy as each pipe is individually numbered providing for rapid traceability.
Should components need replacement, valves and actuators are provided with simple push fittings or simple dual-bolt fixings for ease of replacement, with many parts fitted externally for easy access.
There are also critical valve functions that provide visual indicators for airflow and there are manual over-ride options to allow for system checks and testing.
Ian Cleaver, who is SMC's Car Project Manager heading up the company's expanding involvement with Europe's major car manufacturers, said the Sunderland shuttle development was a perfect illustration of how customer partnerships should operate.
SMC has a highly experienced engineer constantly on-site for Nissan and during the development stage of the universal shuttles, he and the company's project team in Milton Keynes worked very closely to provide a bespoke solution within Nissan's very demanding specifications.
"It is true to say this has been a joint development.
It clearly illustrates the industry's demands for supplier partners capable of providing an extensive technical resource with constant total on-site support and at our production facility, backed by a truly in-depth understanding of the customer's operations and objectives.
To undertake projects of this nature with complete success we believe it is essential to have complete empathy with customers," said Ian Cleaver.
This ability to become an inherent part of a customer's own team to achieve significant cost reductions is far reaching and applied by SMC in similar projects in car plants throughout Europe as well as the UK, he added.
And as Keith Tremble observed SMC's focus on the shuttle project resulted in each operator quickly and readily accepting the new systems because they had been involved in the development of the concept.
"We worked hand in hand with SMC who clearly understood exactly what we needed to achieve within the broad business objectives of Nissan.
Their approach fully complements the philosophy of Kaizen within Nissan, which is to continuously seek to make the job easier, whilst improving productivity without detriment to the operator.
Importantly, they also got it right first time," he said.