Productivity improvement of control cable manufacturing machine for the automotive industry

Abstract

Due to the high competitiveness that characterizes the automotive industry (AI), there is an intensive search for improvements that translates into significant impacts on the productivity, still guaranteeing the levels of quality required by the client. The requirement for flexibility is leading to a paradigm shift that arises from a constant change in the needs of consumers, who demand an ever-higher level of customization in the products. In recent years, the increasing use of automation in industry resulted in significantly improved product quality, better working environment, higher cost efficiency, and major improvement in process flexibility. The present work addresses the productivity improvement of a control cable manufacturing machine for the AI. The main objective is related to the development of a new stripping machine concept that allows the simultaneous coating removal from two cables, thus eliminating an existing bottleneck in the injection process of the cables’ first Zamak terminal. A prototype machine was built, and the new concept validated, and then implemented in the factory. An automatic cable extraction system was also designed, aiming to reduce the number of manual tasks performed by the operator, with the expectation of further improving the process productivity. The development of the two new mechanisms followed the Design Science Research (DSR) methodology. With the implementation of the new double stripping concept and automatic cable extraction system, a major increase in productivity (up to 87.8% compared to the current condition) and cost reduction were achieved.