Piston Assembly

Challenge: Our customer's current systems could not keep up with demand for parts to meet a 30% growth requirement. Operations was seeking upgrades for older, slower and less reliable automation to meet this increased demand. They needed a machine to provide additional production capacity for piston assemblies while maintaining quality and reliability requirements. A reasonable lead time was required to meet production demands.

Solution: Design and build a machine that automatically assembles piston subassemblies and deposits them into a bulk tote. The machine feeds, orients, assembles, presses, and stakes components as they pass through. This system is built around an indexing dial table to provide the motion and precision location for each operation. Pneumatic pick and place provides an economical motion that exceeds the required run rate. The machine consists of the following components and stations:

• Dial Indexer with assembly nests
• Bowl feeders
• Bearing Press Station
• Pin Feeder
• Washer Feeder
• Piston Pick and Place
• Pin Press
• Staking
• Unload

This solution exceeds the required 110 assemblies/hour with an output of ~600 parts per hour and an OEE of 85%.