Car Manufacture

How organizations use ICT

Objectives

• Have an understanding of how organizations

use ICT.

• Be able to describe a number of uses, giving

the hardware and software requirements.

• Be able to describe the applications that these

uses can be put to.

• Robotic arms are used

extensively in car

manufacture

• Robotic arms generally

have 7 sections with 6

joints

• Each joint is controlled

by an actuator (a

stepper motor)

Stepper Motors

• Normal DC motors spin either forwards or

backwards when current is applied

• A stepper motor moves in very small

steps instead

• It makes a precise number of stepped

revolutions to move the robotic arm in very

small increments to the correct position.

• Paint car bodies

• Put on wheels

• Drill holes in car

bodies

• Fix rivets

• Tighten bolts

• Assemble electrical

circuits

• Insert engines

• The computer controls the movement of the arm so that a variety of jobs can be carried out.

• The jobs carried out

depend on the end

effector attached to the

arm.

Types of end effector

Gripper • To pick up parts & put them somewhere else

• Grippers usually have pressure sensors built in to them

• These sensors tell the robot how hard it is gripping something so that the robot doesn’t drop or break it

Camera

– To inspect work

– Quality control

purposes

Welding gun

• To weld parts of the car body together

• Welding can be hazardous to humans

Vacuum cups

• To pick up parts without obstructing the sides or bottom

• Small complex

car parts

• Windscreens/

flat sheets of

metal etc

Drills

– To make holes in the car body

Screwdrivers

• Also spanners and riveters

• To place and tighten screws, nuts, bolts and rivets

Spray guns

• To paint the car body

• Paint fumes are dangerous to humans

Sanders/polishers

• To produce a shiny finish after painting

End effectors

• A robot arm can have any of the previous end

effectors

• If the end effector is changed, the programming must

also be changed

Why use robots?

• Designed to perform

the same task/

operation over and

over again

• For a person, this

would be repetitive &

boring

• Greater accuracy than a human

• Lower running costs compared with

paying a human

• Do not get tired

• Work is consistent standard

• Continuous process, no need for breaks

or shift changes

• A programmer

guides the arm

through each step – Either by remote

control

– Or by physically

holding the arm with

sensors attached

• Computer stores

exact sequence of

movements in its

memory