Customer Problem | Pain Point:
A customer within the Automotive industry reached out to Proto-1 with a need to combine operations into one process for production of steering columns. Their current solution involved 3 separate operations. The first was a reduction operation to reduce the end of a mild steel, .095″ wall tube. From there, the tube would receive a rectangular punch with rounded corners. Then, the tube was faced to a required overall length. This tube would then be assembled into a steering column assembly.
Engineering A Solution:
The customer required a pick and place cell that combined all 3 operations into one automated process. Proto-1’s in-house electrical engineering team decided that a RAM-70 ram end forming machine would be the foundation of the cell. The RAM-70 would provide enough power, accuracy, and room for the reduction operation and automation. Tubes would roll down a chute where they go into a conveyor system. This conveyor system fed into the servo that placed each tube into the RAM-70. Rather than adding another operation to the cell, our engineering team integrated the punch operation into the tooling for the RAM-70. This integration allowed the RAM-70 to reduce and punch in the same operation, eliminating additional cycle time for the cell. Once the tube was reduce and punched, the servo would retract and it would roll down another chute to be transferred to the facing machine. The tube would fall into a trough where a tube backstop pressed it to the right location. Clamps would maintain the tube’s location while a servo moved the trough into the facing machine. The facing machine would face the tube to the customer specified length and the servo would retract. A clamp would descend and pick the tube out of the trough and transfer it to a final product bin.
Final Tube Forming Solution Delivered to Customer:
The final cell was a 2 operation automated cell which combined all the processes and met the requirements that the customer specified. The automation provided additional safety by keeping the operator away from the working area. Not only was Proto-1 able to provide the customer with a solution to their current project, but also future projects to come. This cell is capable of being retooled to produce different types of steering columns and is currently running to this day.
