Conveyor installation doubles dashboard assembly at Honda Swindon 24 August 2011

Honda's Swindon plant has doubled the assembly capacity for its Civic dashboards with a new conveyor installation.

Leicester-based CI Logistics has installed a continuously moving, inverted monorail conveyor for the dashboard sub-assembly line at the manufacturing site.

Designed to transport new Honda Civic dashboards around a 20-station assembly line in Car Plant 2, the conveyor has increased the process efficiency and reliability of the line. "The dashboard of our new Honda Civic model uses the latest technology so we needed more work stations and therefore a longer assembly line to be able to build it," says Honda new model project engineer Neil Adams. "Originally we had a 10-station conveyor to build the current dashboard; with the extra processes we needed to double that to 20 stations," he says.

The installation is an enclosed track, towline conveyor which pulls the 20 individual trolleys carrying the dashboards around the assembly line. Conveyor speed ranges from 700mm to 1,700mm per minute.

Adams says he shortlisted three companies; CI Logistics' quote was the most cost effective and was a proven design for the automotive sector. "Although I had considered a friction drive conveyor, the one we selected is a predominantly electronic, chain driven conveyor. Being robust, the conveyor requires low maintenance which is important for long term cost efficiency. The conveyor is also future model proofed – to assemble a different dashboard, we only need to redesign the jig to fit a new model."

The new conveyor was installed in four days, with work beginning as soon as production finished on a Thursday. Software capability was another key consideration, says Adams: "Software reliability is particularly important as the controls for each sub-assembly line link into Honda's main assembly line software. Every assembly line is sequenced so as each finished dashboard comes off the line it is immediately transferred across a short gangway to the main assembly line. Here it is fitted into a car body which is exactly in position to receive the dashboard. Working in this systematic way, a new Honda car is produced every 85 seconds."

The Swindon site employs 3,500, building 300 cars per shift for customers in the UK, Europe and Russia.

Laura Cork

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