To make its car doors fit better and to reduce the wind noise inside the vehicle, Ford Motor has plans to invest around $ 100 million in robotic laser technology. The system will eliminate the problem arising due to manual installation of car doors, as the process “requires a lot of manual finesse,” commented Ron Ketelhut, Chief Engineer of the project. According to him a small gap in the seal could result in wind noise inside the car. He stated with the manual system, no matter how hard the company tried to eliminate the problem, there were always complaints. But the company hopes to solve this problem with the installation of the new system.
The new equipment will be first installed in plants that make the Ford Focus compact car in Wayne, Michigan and Germany, apart from a Chicago facility that makes the Explorer crossover sport utility vehicle. As a part of the new system, a robotic camera after taking picture of the opening will make adjustments to ensure the doors fit in properly. In the production process too, after the car is painted, another robot with camera will re-check if the doors are snugly fit. “If the margin between the front door and the fender needs to be adjusted by two-tenths of a millimeter, the robot will say to adjust this one area by two-tenths of a millimeter,” quoted Ketelhut. Eventually all the 17 assembly plants of Ford around the world will use this technology.