GM's engine plant in New York uses a new type of smart bolt that collects data during production to help automakers reduce the chance of error. As is well known, the structure of the engine is complicated, and various problems may occur during assembly, such as failure of the assembly machine, defective parts, and of course, human error. However, GM's plant in Tona Vanda, New York, has begun to adopt a high-tech approach to prevent and detect these problems. The key equipment is just a small, insignificant bolt.
Recently, the 75-year-old factory has invested $400 million to upgrade and plans to produce a new line of fifth-generation six- and eight-cylinder engines. GM is the first automaker to apply radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to its tracking management system. As early as more than a decade ago, GM's factories began using RFID tags, but now the "data bolts" are attached directly to the cylinder head and engine block. The data bolts are threaded like normal bolts, but the bolt heads are hollow. GM installed epoxy, memory chips (or RFID tags) and spiral wires (equivalent to antennas) in the hollow bolt heads.
As the name suggests, data bolts can store information, to be precise, 2 kilobytes of information. By current standards, the data bolt storage capacity is too small (3 to 5 megabytes for a normal MP3 file), but the amount of storage is sufficient to record information about each process of the engine block or cylinder head. This information is important for tracking management systems. The data bolt uploads all the collected information to the server located at the factory.
Data bolts to prop up the "assembly line"
There are 50 different points in the entire pipeline, and the data bolts collect data at these points and transmit them to the server. Almost every automated machine is equipped with an RFID scanner and an RFID writer that reads the information in the data bolts before starting and writes new information at the end. If an automated machining is not in place, the next step of the machine will find and pick out the engine block or cylinder head and inspect it by the worker.
At the GM Tona Wanda plant, when assembling the cylinder head and engine block, place the engine on the pallet, attach the RFID tag, and combine the cylinder head and the engine block production serial number. The RFID tag in the data bolt then records the assembly information and sends it to the central server for retrieval.
Similarly, if the worker removes an engine block or cylinder head sampling tolerance from the assembly line, but does not return it to the original place after work, the cylinder block or cylinder head will not be misplaced, and there is no RFID tag before. At the time, such situations sometimes occur. Peter Laskiewicz, a GM manufacturing process engineer, said: “Data bolts save us a lot of time, especially when the production line is just running, parts are scattered everywhere, we have to figure out which part the part should be placed in. Because the CNC milling machine uses computer coordinates to machine the plane and top hole of the engine block or cylinder head, if a cylinder or cylinder head misses a machining process, it may seriously damage a new CNC milling machine. . Peter Ruske Weiss told reporters that there are 30 such CNC milling machines in the Tona Wanda factory. The value of a CNC milling machine is about $1 million.
However, after the completion of the cylinder head processing, the Tona Wanda factory will install the cylinder head to the engine block using a special machine that can tighten 20 bolts at the same time. After that, the data recorded by the RFID tag becomes very important. By checking the data, the worker can know whether each bolt of the engine cylinder head is tightened; some bolts have very high tolerance levels, they are tightened and screwed. The number of loose times is limited, and the data recorded by RFID tags is crucial. Before using the data bolts, the worker may re-tighten the bolts and even get rid of the bolts if they are not up to standard. Such an engine will leak oil sooner or later.
GM uses the new data bolt RFID tag system, mainly to ensure the quality control of the engine goes smoothly. Data bolts help workers identify and handle engine failures after the engine has been machined . If a component supplier tells GM that there is a quality problem with a batch of parts, GM can easily figure out that the parts with quality problems are installed on those engines by simply taking data from the data bolts. GM said it plans to extend the new tracking management system to other factories, but did not specify the exact time. Marc Brazeau, director of AlixPartners, who specializes in manufacturing processes, says GM is implementing a new tracking management system that is likely to become popular throughout the equipment manufacturing industry, "in the next four to five years. In the time, the assembly manufacturing industry will undergo tremendous changes."
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