Leak Testing: An essential element of an automotive industry

For a wide range of industries, leak testing is one of the most essential elements to determine the product’s quality and reliability. From heating industry to the automotive industry, HVAC product manufacturing etc - countless products and parts have to be tested for tightness in order to meet specifications and standards to be granted the acceptance or rejection status.

Leak testing is indeed known to be the integral part of the production process of an automotive industry. And for many suppliers, hundred percent of the automotive parts are tested against a leak testing standard to meet the quality requirements of the product or part. No system can ever be absolutely tight; however leak testing strives to measure the exact leak rate of the manufactured product ensuring that the product has been tested for maximum allowable leakage.

In an automotive industry, leak testing may be performed for several reasons, two extremely important reasons being:

1. To ensure that the outer environment is protected, keeping flammable, toxic or corrosive substances within an object’s walls.

2. To ensure that a liquid or gas essential to the function of a system such as brakes, air conditioning units or hydraulic valves is contained within that system for the necessary period of time.

Why do businesses need automation?

A number of computerized services and automatic assembly fixtures and equipments are available in the market for manufacturing processes, including the robotics and conveyor integration of manufacturing work cells that can help in reducing the production cost without compromising with the quality. If you are looking for the similar services then search online because nowadays these services are readily visible and available over the internet.

There are a lot of advantages of using automation systems in lieu of traditional manual systems because these technically superior processes have become very productive such that the cost of production has diminished greatly and products are manufactured with accuracy. The major reason for the shift from manually controlled processes to automation controls system is the difference in the rate of production. Suppose 100 product parts are manufactured in 24 hours with normal manual process then it would take roughly 4 hours to do the same work with automated system. Number of workers or employees needed in automated system is quite less therefore the expenditure on wages which is included in manual processes could be used somewhere else in the production process.

Secondly, the use of automated system helps you in combining all the processes into one solution and the consequences are clearly visible in the results like increased efficiency, ordered processes, more accuracy, good quality and less time consuming. All these factors force the manufacturers to adopt automation controls system because the results are fabulous and overall sales could be fairly striking.

Initially, investing in automatic assembly equipments seems like wasting money but the decision to invest in these types of systems becomes clearly reasonable once you start getting the return on investment. Final decision to automate the processes of your business should be taken after researching the market trend carefully and making sure that it is feasible for your business.

Assembly Automation – Keeping pace with new developments

Driven by the increasing demand to fulfill industry’s requirement for higher productivity, a simple serviceable term defining “automation” implies that it is easy to implement and should be cost effective. To provide most efficient and cost effective solutions to various manufacturing processes, the Assembly automation technology is constantly being researched, designed, developed and refined. Modularity, flexibility and efficient quality control monitoring marks today's assembly machines and systems.

Assembly Automation is aimed to keep pace with new advancements and developments, making it invaluable to engineers and managers who design and apply automation control systems in various user industries all over the world.

New innovations are constantly being devised to test and deploy assembly systems for better quality, faster production and minimum running costs. The process of Assembly Automation includes all of the following systems but is not restricted to only these.

- design, inspection and machine vision for assembly

- artificial intelligence for assembly

- compliant mechanisms

- joining technologies and flexible gripping

- manufacturing control and modular assembly systems

- parts feeding and presentation

- rapid prototyping and robot assembly stations

Investing in assembly process technologies can give a manufacturing company an edge over its competitors. But such investments are not without risk. Equal amounts of time and consideration must be given to choose the automation provider and select the automation technology that can best convert your investment into profit.

Today, special purpose factory automation, especially the automated assembly, has become a world-encompassing business but since the aspects like quality assurance, logistics and organization also play an increasingly decisive role, production automation requires a combined effort that is well beyond the standard process technologies.

Production Automation – Reconciling Pace and Flexibility

Many reasons support the need for companies to automate their process control. And the key factor influencing the automation requirements is to increase productivity and shorten the time to market. Manufacturing plants covering a large physical area heavily rely on the process of automation for the safe monitoring and accurate control of the production processes. However, industries like food manufacturing, brewing or small traditional manual operations have also replaced their manual operations by automation control systems. In this competitive era, the only way to achieve the competitive advantage is by improving the production by implementing higher levels of automation.

Advantages commonly attributed to automation include

1. Higher production rates

2. Increased productivity

3. More efficient use of materials

4. Better product quality

5. Improved safety

6. Shorter workweeks for labours.

7. Reduced factory lead times.

The biggest reason that fully justifies the use of machine automation is the higher output and increased productivity. Automated systems typically perform manufacturing process with less variability than human workers, resulting in greater control and consistency of product quality. Also, increased process control makes more efficient use of materials, resulting in less scrap.

Another advantage of automating the industry process is the decrease in the number of hours worked on average per week by the factory workers. According to a survey, in a company of about 1900 the average workweek was approximately 70 hours. With the implementation of automation tools and machines, the standard workweek was calculated to have gradually reduced to about 40 hours. The two key factors - mechanization and automation played a significant role in this reduction.

Automating the industrial operations has also increased the safety of the worker as production automation often removes workers from the workplace, thus safeguarding them against the hazards of the factory environment. However it is gradually becoming a national objective of making work safer and protecting the physical well-being of the workers in all sectors of the industries and plants.

Advancements in Industrial Automation processes.

The use of robotic devices to speed up the manufacturing tasks is called as Industrial automation. Industrial automation systems are increasingly gaining critical importance in the field of manufacturing processes as these computerized or robotic manufacturing machines are capable of handling repetitive tasks quickly and efficiently which in turn leads to high productivity in less time.

Assembly Automation

Assembly automation is a core aspect of every manufacturing process and that is why it is constantly being researched, refined and developed to provide most cost-effective solutions to various manufacturing problems. Assembly machines Automation is sighted to keep pace with new developments and expansions, making it invaluable to engineers and managers who design and apply automation systems in user industries all over the world. Latest Innovations and improvements are constantly being devised, tested and deployed throughout the manufacturing world due to the increasing demands for better quality, faster production and minimum running costs.

Power Plant Automation

New innovations are being made to capture the targets in order to constantly develop and improve products and offer complete solutions in power plant automation. New manufacturing challenges and upcoming business opportunities have created the world of global markets where new approaches and new technologies are required to automate and control the production processes.

Rolling Mill Automation.

The technology of rolling mill production automation has progressed swiftly in the last decade and, due to modern computer control systems, reached a high level of refinement and sophistication. The technology necessarily embraces a broad spectrum of interests, ranging from fundamental process analysis to the solution of special control-theoretic problems. The ultimate objective of all industry aims to reach a larger productivity and a better quality of the industrialized products.

Growing Opportunities and optimization of Production Automation Industry.

Production automation systems have been developing and enhancing for years. In early years, production automation systems were primarily being used to measure production variables like flow rate, pressure, temperature etc with only a few limited remote control functions. The overall progress of production was rather slow because of the limitations involved like lack of understanding of the latest instrumentation technology, cost to use computer hardware and software, limited coverage of production operations and acceptance of new technological enhancements.

However today, instrumentation, communications, and computer hardware and software are, for the most part, accurate, reliable, and reasonably priced and affordable. One of the largest challenges to acceptance and support is insufficient training and staff development. People who have the necessary knowledge, skills, and motivation must be developed and retained. Both machine manufacturers and suppliers must improve delivery of support and training systems if this technology is to reach its full potential.

How will we benefit?

With the enhancement in production automation technologies, the number of people, along with the associated production machine equipment and vehicles required for routine checking, data gathering, and manual control tasks will be minimized. By converting low-skill manual-labor tasks to career opportunities requiring technical skills and knowledge, job content and satisfaction will drastically improve. Repair and maintenance costs will be minimized by keeping equipment operating within the safe operating envelope. Making optimum use of equipment minimizes unnecessary capital expenditures. Automating data capture and transmission from the machine manufacturing plant to all people and information systems that need information, both inside and outside the organization, reduces support costs

Use of laser cutting method in automation industry.

Various types of lasers are used for metal cutting in production automation industry. Some of the most widely sued laser machines are CO2 lasers and YAG lasers. YAG lasers are ideal for 3D applications as they can be operated across flexible fiber optic cables and manipulated with a robot. Carbon dioxide (CO2) lasers are mostly used to cut flat metal surfaces. But these can also be used to cut other surfaces too. There are no hard and set rules for using CO2 lasers on flat surfaces only.

Carbon Dioxide lasers are advantageous for cutting thick materials as these offers a high beam quality at high beam power. YAG lasers are no match to the efficiency of CO2 lasers when it comes to beam quality at high powers, but this may soon change as Disk lasers evolve. Another type of laser that is gaining much popularity these days is Fiber laser. These lasers enable the laser beam to be delivered along fiber optic cables.

The principal gases used in laser cutting are oxygen or nitrogen. Sometimes argon is also used in place of oxygen and nitrogen especially on sensitive materials such as titanium where the material would react with either oxygen or nitrogen.

The cutting nozzle of the laser machine is the key to success. It forms the cutting gas jet and thus determines the cut quality. Advantages of laser cutting are not just the cut precision and the cutting speeds to be achieved, but also potential for allowing automation controls system to run a laser machine unattended in night shifts.