Over the past few years, all the successful automobile manufacturers have reduced their supplier basis for vehicle components from several thousand companies to just a few hundred. Where automobile manufacturers received thousands of components when this trend started, they are now supplied with complete door systems, interior fittings or braking systems by the system suppliers.
This trend has now been identified in deliveries to manufacturing plants too: The production plants are generally manufactured by special plant manufacturers, so-called line builders who take on the responsibility for building the plant as quasi general contractors. The reduction in the number of suppliers is therefore more likely to affect component suppliers than large multinational companies. Nowadays, it is only by having international representation close to the automobile plants that automation technology suppliers such as Festo can have any chance of being included as a preferred supplier in product specifications.
Regardless of the level of automation, pneumatic components and systems can undertake major tasks such as:
- Handling and transporting sheet metal parts in the press shop
- Component clamping and fixing, positioning welding tongs for the unpainted body shell
- Nozzle control in the paint area, and
- Assembling or feeding units in final assembly.
With a selection of 18,000 products, Festo offers a broad and flexible range of products and complete systems.
Features of the standard cylinder with clamping cartridge, DNC-KP, include:
- Holding and clamping of piston rods in any position during clamping, processing or handling tasks
- Clamping unit with compact design
- The piston rod can be held in position for long periods even with alternating loads, fluctuating operating pressure or leaks in the system, and
- With own modular product
Standardisation
 In order to avoid downtime, components, which must meet certain specified standards, are being increasingly used in manufacturing plants so that maintenance personnel can replace defective components more quickly. The net result for component suppliers: Standardisation forces them to offer a standardised range of core commodities. However, Festo offers more than standard solutions: By offering complete solutions and special services, the company is represented with automobile manufacturers and tier-1 suppliers throughout the world.
Intelligent systems
Contributory factors in plant productivity are preventative maintenance and time-optimised and controlled systems. Intelligent systems, for example, provide data regarding switching cycles, which facilitates strategic and planned maintenance. Diagnostic aids provide maintenance staff with assistance in identifying defects. Controlled or user definable systems reduce the cycle time and optimise the process.
Festo is setting standards in this sector with valve terminals and cylinders with diagnostic capabilities or intelligent systems for welding tongs.
Pneumatics
The sturdiness, simplicity and reliability of pneumatics reduce maintenance and defect identification costs. Furthermore, pneumatic drives also provide additional supplementary functions such as guidance, adaptation and sensing options, which come practically "free". With pneumatics, "intelligent" and cost-effective systems can also be realised, as Festo has demonstrated with its welding tongs drive.
Piece work for welding robots: Festo pneumatics are in action in the unpainted body shell area when the welding tongs need to be transported, held, gripped and fed.
(Festo Controls Pvt Ltd, Plot No: 237-B, Bommasandra Industrial Area, Bangalore-Hosur Highway, Bangalore 560 099. Tel: 080-22894100. Fax: 91-80 27832058, 27833362. E-mail: info_in@ festo.com)
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