The Proving Factory’s recently opened assembly facility in Coventry will be using a flexible manufacturing cell supplied by MiniTec.
The £22 million Proving Factory provides process development and ‘proving volume’ production of leading-edge low-carbon technology automotive components and systems.
The flexibility and scalability of the MiniTec Profile System allows The Proving Factory to easily modify and fine tune the set-up in line with their own aims to develop the best assembly and test procedures for producing competitive high-quality products.
Solution Design
Working closely with The Proving Factory team, we designed and supplied the majority of the equipment for the assembly operations and end-of-line tests which includes several workbenches with Kanban racks and component storage.
The design brief included the requirement to handle products from 30 to 300 kg and defined a standard for tools and equipment storage – with re-configurability a prime consideration – to adapt the large variety of products that will be assembled using the cell.
Efficient Turnaround
We supplied the complete system within five weeks from receipt of order and further components or sub-assemblies are also available on very short lead times.
Karl Fawdry, Manufacturing Engineer at The Proving Factory said,
We were able to build and configure the first cell within four hours of delivery to the Coventry site. MiniTec’s support has been invaluable in developing our need for flexible and reconfigurable assembly cells.”
The Flexibility Of Reconfiguring
Redesign and reconfiguration is made straightforward using the MiniTec free-of-charge iCAD design software that is integrated with the customer’s preferred software system.
iCAD includes interfaces with all common CAD packages and is also available for standalone design and development as an on-line tool with no CAD knowledge required. MiniTec’s Profile System also boasts the fastest assembly/re-asembly time for all major framing systems thanks to its Powerlock® fastener – a single operation fixing requiring just an Allen key and no pre-drilling of the cut-to-length profile.
With major partners across the automotive industry and their new flexible manufacturing cells, The Proving Factory are well placed to continue taking innovative products and design ideas from small high-tech British companies and university department technology transfer enterprises, and develop them for large-volume production for global vehicle manufacturers and tier one suppliers.
