MATERIALS HANDLING & CONVEYING FEATURE
BRIDGING THE GAP WITH POWERED ROLLER CONVEYORS T
he Jaguar XF Sportbrake is produced at the famous Castle Bromwich plant
where Spitfires and Lancaster bombers were built in WW2. To accommodate the car Land Rover selected Comau to build a dedicated tabbing and framing cell. This takes the car body floor out of the XF saloon assembly line to have the side body panels, roof and other components put in place, tabbed and welded by robots before being returned to the main assembly line. Comau selected LB Foster Materials Handling to design, manufacture and install the conveyor system, lifts and transfer cars. The first stage of the project included a powered roller conveyor mounted on a hydraulic scissor lift table which was mounted on a traverse car to create a ‘bridge’ over some of Comau’s equipment. The lift has to raise the body floor 1.75m off the floor to enable it to enter the tabbing and framing cell. When the body floor is received into this first station operators manually attach the side body panels and other structural elements which are tabbed to hold them in place for welding. Once complete the scissor lift raises
the body and the transfer car moves forward at the required height to feed it into the welding area. The roller conveyor
opposite direction and deposited on a modified roller bed outside of the fenced area so operators can carry out a quality inspection on the assembly. The final stage involved providing a
‘one-way through’ route from the welding station back into the main production line. This was achieved by installing a powered roller conveyor mounted on a scissor table just after the welding station and another unit at the start of the return line. The side transfer was accomplished
was mounted on a special precise lifting assembly provided by Comau. Once the body is in the welding cell the conveyor is lowered, leaving the body on its skid clear of the conveyor to enable welding by robots. This tabbing and framing cell was designed with the potential to extend the system to provide extra capacity as production increased. The second stage required LB Foster to
complete a special ‘take-out’ station to provide an inspection facility for quality purposes. Two apertures had to be cut out of the sides of an existing transfer car to allow a new extending fork transfer device with a cam lift to extend one side and pick up the body from the transfer car. It is then moved in the
At the end of the return line the body is transferred back onto the main assembly line
using a extending fork system without a lift. The forks move the body on its skid 6.75m across to the return line where it is deposited onto a further powered roller conveyor mounted on a hydraulic scissor lift table which lowers the body down to the floor before moving it onto a transfer car which runs on twin steel running tracks cast into the concrete floor. Comau and LB Foster had to integrate
new equipment with existing machinery while working within a confined area and to a tight timeframe. The result was an effective solution that dovetailed into the existing main assembly line.
LB Foster Materials Handling T: 0116 276 1691
www.conveyors.co.uk
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