People-Focused Technology, Innovative Processes Help Make Lansing Grand River A State-Of-The-Art Facility
FOR RELEASE: January 9, 2002People-Focused Technology, Innovative Processes Help Make Lansing Grand River A State-Of-The-Art Facility
Lansing, Mich. - Cutting-edge technology and innovative processes help make Lansing Grand River (LGR) a state-of-the-art assembly plant. But in keeping with LGR's emphasis on people, technology is used to enable team members to work more safely and to perform their jobs better and more accurately.
"At Lansing Grand River, the story is technology serving people, not people serving technology," said Ken Knight, LGR assistant plant manager. "People systems are the key to our ability to achieve world-class efficiency and quality. The focus in technology is on how people interface with it."
The all-new assembly plant produces the new Cadillac CTS luxury sport sedan and will build other future luxury vehicles.
Body Shop technology
One important innovation used in the Body Shop is the Programmable Adaptable Assembly System (PAAS), which allows programmable positioning and clamping of parts. "PAAS saves a lot of floor space, and it adds tremendous flexibility because it can be programmed to adjust to different body styles from job to job on the same line," Knight said.
PAAS units - small robots, each the approximate size of a basketball - serve as locating devices to position tools in exactly the right place for different models as they come down the line. They replace the traditional system that required cumbersome tooling stations that could index back and forth for different models.
Because of safety concerns, automation is more prevalent in the Body Shop than in the other operations at LGR. A total of 338 robots perform welding under the supervision of 163 team members per shift, including 22 salaried employees and 75 maintenance workers.
To ensure dimensional integrity, every body-in-white is measured at more than 100 points by a laser system supplied by Perceptron.
Air pollution abatement
LGR's paint operations use the latest technology for air pollution abatement. Metal bodies are cleaned by chrome-free phosphates before being immersed in a lead-free electrodeposition (ELPO) primer. Water-borne paints are used in the basecoat processes, eliminating volatile organic compounds (VOC) emissions. A two-component clear coat provides a durable finish. Ninety percent of the solvents used to purge painting equipment are recaptured and recycled.
The Paint Shop itself is an innovative design. In traditional paint shops, operators are spread over four floors. Under the GM Global Manufacturing System, that was reduced to two floors in the GM plant at Eisenach, Germany and other new greenfield plants that followed. The LGR design puts all operators who need to interact in a production mode on one level, providing for better visual management and easier team interaction.
An innovative conveyor system, adapted from GM partner Saab, reduces plant floor noise and helps keep the freshly-painted vehicles clean. Instead of a traditional elevator system that potentially draws dust because of turbulence, LGR's system uses a slow-moving conveyor that rises on an incline to take a car to the paint oven.
The Paint Shop also is the major beneficiary of a computer-controlled climate monitoring system that helps the plant save significant energy costs.
Innovative processes
Innovative processes contribute to General Assembly being a model for lean manufacturing techniques. The T-shaped facility has numerous loading docks, used every day by up to 350 semi-trucks that deliver materials.
Many of the semi-trailers are designed with a unique conveyor system so that components can be automatically unloaded and conveyed line-side. Another LGR innovation is a system for automatically loading empty racks on an outgoing truck, while incoming parts are being automatically unloaded from an adjacent full truck. Power conveyors transport the racks containing parts in build sequence directly to the workers, where the next part is assembled on the vehicle.
Other parts are received on dollies that can be pulled with tuggers instead of being moved with fork lifts. When a line-side team member sends a signal that a component will be needed, a computerized system alerts a tugger driver and provides the optimum route on a screen. The system saves inventory space while eliminating the safety hazard of fork lifts.
To assist workers in performing their jobs right, LGR also uses a number of sophisticated error-proofing technologies such as computerized devices that monitor the torque of critical fastenings, and systems that call out the correct parts to be installed and warn if the wrong part is selected.
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