Volvo Cars Corporation provided Team SPEAR with a brief for a Volvo Manufacturing Cell of an assembled Cowl part (a car's windscreen support). The team were required to investigate the use of and creation of 'Smart Components' - devices that have predefined logic and the added advantage that they can be saved in a library for use in numerous virtual production facilities. The turntable and associated clamps (see image on the right) were the smart components in this investigation.

 

Both Left-Hand Drive (LHD) and Right-Hand Drive (RHD) car parts could be manufactured on the turntable. As such the sequence of processes was as follows: the operator selects whether a LHD or RHD car is required and subsequently the parts for the LHD or RHD are placed in the turntable. The associated manual clamps are then closed. The roller curtain is subsequently closed allowing the automatic clamps to close. Finally, the turntable rotates and the parts are unloaded. 

 

Logic was defined such that the turntable would only rotate following the loading of all LHD or RHD parts. Further to this, it was defined that if any additional parts from the alternative car type were added (i.e. a RHD part was added when a LHD car had been selected by the operator), the turntable and safety curtain would remain stationary. The position of the safety curtain also dictated the motion of the turntable. If the curtain was open, the rotation of the turntable would always be restricted.

 

The video shown on the right demonstrates the implementation of the smart components, including examples of logical control as well as the position of the turntable in respect to the rest of the manufacturing cell.