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What is a Truck Body And Assembly Plant

Roving Data Collection for Torque Audits Reduces Fastener Failures 

The popular compact-sized pickup trucks are assembled at this unit of the company’s body and assembly division in St. Paul, Minnesota. As part of a company-wide manufacturing systems upgrade, it re-engineered its worldwide torque audit program with the goal of significantly reducing CpKs and fastener-related warranty issues.

Problem

New manufacturing software requirements demanded a roving data collector with increased memory and on-board data analysis capability. The company had been using the DataMyte 1000 and 1500 data collectors successfully for its torque audits, and now it wanted to exploit the new capabilities of the 3053. 

Solution

DataMyte 3053 roving data collectors with built-in torque auditing capability. All roving data collectors in worldwide body and assembly plants are being replaced with DataMyte 3053s. At the St. Paul plant, quality auditors perform a torque surveillance on more than 100 different vehicles in different stages of assembly. As the auditors walk their route, they select fasteners, apply a torque wrench, and take a reading. The information is input into the data collector, which automatically charts the data on a torque curve plot. This immediately tells the operator the status of the process, and whether a pneumatic tool is out of control. If so, the tool can be changed or readjusted immediately

They realized more than 100% improvement in CpKs and a significant reduction in fastener-related vehicle rework and aftermarket warranty claims. Tool adjustments are now based on actual data, and not on opinion. The company’s quality managers can study quality trends on the production line and rewrite specifications that reflect the more accurate information available to them. The long-term goal is to eliminate fastener-related issues at the customer level. 

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