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Auto body part stamping
revolutionary concept of the assembly line to make cars included a
rope which pulled a line of chassis along a track, at which stood
fifty workers, each fixing their own allotted part to each chassis
as it moved by. Assembly time for a chassis dropped from twelve to
one and a half hours. In less than ten years, the price of a auto
body part stamping dropped quick..
The urge to save labor has continued to inspire new developments,
with robots replacing workers, cutting out tedious tasks and
guaranteeing greater accuracy. On the Fiat Uno, 30 of the 2700
welds are done by hand. Only specialized crafts, such as
electrical wiring, now remain in human hands.
In a typical car assembly in the 1980s, the first stage was sheet
steel arriving at the press shop. In areas as large as three
football stadiums, robot cranes supplied rolled sheets of steel to
giant stamping machines, which cut the pieces of metal to make up
the car body. Then robots built the underbody or floorpan, making
numerous welds and creating a complex shape with spaces for wheel
arches, boot wells and spare wheels.
In the next stage, large auto body part stamping positioned the
body sides and roof to be welded into place automatically. In the
meantime, the doors had been made on nearby assembly lines in a
process that involved several different pressings to create an
outer skin clinched over an inner frame. Finally, lasers checked
every auto body part stamping body for the smallest flaw,
distortion or irregularity. |
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