NISSAN/CALSONIC-KANSEI

Parts Determining Systems, Car & Truck Sub-Assembly Lines
Canton, MS and Smyrna, TN Assembly Plants

We designed and implemented Parts Determining Systems (PDS’s) on several sub-assembly lines in two Nissan North America plants. These lines assembled the instrument panels (CPM’s), front end modules (FEM’s), and the console for selected Nissan and Infiniti cars, SUV’s and trucks.

The PDS systems assured correct construction of each sub-assembly via first reading a bar-coded sheet tagged to each unit. The system then interrogates a data base for the bill-of-materials needed to assemble that unit, and tracks that unit on the assembly line verifying accurate completion at each station.
Proper assembly is assured through a combination of pick lights/sensors, bar-code readers and screw-driver torque counts.  For the factory floor-level devices, the control system utilized off-the-shelf industrial controllers (PLC’s) for dependability, production speed and ease of maintenance.

Additionally, the configuration of the off-the-shelf software running on the main PC allowed the line supervision to efficiently adjust and balance the lines.