The drive to lower costs and increase productivity on production lines is universal throughout the automotive industry. Visteon Corp. (Dearborn, MI) is no different. Recently, Visteon faced the task of lowering costs and improving productivity while minimizing operator strain in a catalytic converter testing application.
In the application, assistance was needed to help an operator pick up an unwieldy, 42-pound catalytic converter from a turntable and carry it to a gauge fixture for leak testing. Once the part passed the test, it needed to be moved to a rack for shipping. The operator then returned to the table to receive the next part. The required production rate was 100 parts per hour, resulting in 200 lifts per hour, because the operator handled each part twice.