Dave Whetton
Engineering Quality Manager, Comau Estil UK

Comau Estil UK designs and builds vehicle assembly systems for the automotive sector. Recent advances in lean manufacturing have greatly increased the importance of sound reliability engineering and valid reliability predictions, especially in highly automated manufacturing facilities. This introduction and the case study report demonstrate some of Comau Estil UK’s efforts in response to this demand.

Background: Historically, our reliability models were based upon classical calculations of MTBF and MTTR. We realized that this method carried with it the assumption of constant failure rate. However, the method was easy to use in the absence of statistically acceptable analysis tools. In an effort to improve upon existing methods, Ford Motor Company investigated several options for developing standardized reliability reporting based on calculating actual time-to-failure and time-to-repair distributions. As a result of this study, Ford adopted the use of ReliaSoft’s Weibull++ and BlockSim software for reliability improvement and performance modeling. This has been complemented by Ford’s new corporate Reliability and Maintainability (R&M) specification, which requires standard reports incorporating analysis outputs from the ReliaSoft software. Consequently, the American Institute of Quality (AIQ) has been commissioned to roll out strategic training to promote awareness among the supplier base about the advanced statistical techniques. The Ford expectation has been formalized in the five points of FRED (Failure Reporting, Evaluation and Display). Evolving supplier selection criteria is placing increasing weight on standardized reliability reporting using output from ReliaSoft software for predictive models.

Comau Estil UK Initiatives: Comau Estil UK has seized the initiative to apply advanced statistical techniques by retaining consultancy support from Jambor & Associates and applying comprehensive statistical methodologies for vehicle program launch support, many of which are consistent with the five points of FRED. Our application of ReliaSoft software has been piloted in the Jaguar Halewood and Jaguar Castle Bromwich Body Assembly Plants. Comau Estil UK’s specific case studies have targeted the “X” Type Jaguar bodyside and framing systems and the “S” Type Jaguar front structure system. Even before its acquisition by Ford, Jaguar placed high emphasis on reliability techniques such as Machinery FMEAs, reliability allocation models and control plans. Jaguar has welcomed Comau Estil UK’s approach to analyzing reliability using the ReliaSoft software, not only as the basis for reliability improvement but also for the benchmarking of existing facility to incorporate the results into our throughput simulation model as a predictor of future performance. The FRED report presented below, which represents Comau Estil UK’s standardized reporting format, was executed to evaluate the impact of integrating aluminium joining technology into a facility where spot welding has been historically dominant.

Conclusion: Our current capability includes four workstations with the Weibull++ and BlockSim software. We expect our use of the software to increase and result in more licensed workstations and further training from AIQ. Based on case studies that Comau Estil UK has performed to date, we have identified recommendations for enhanced capabilities that would make the software more useful for bodyshop-specific applications. The areas of innovation would be:

• Automated scaling of the eta parameter to reflect machine busy time when utilization is below 100%.
• The ability to start a simulation at an arbitrary point in the life of the tool instead of assuming a starting point of zero.
• More flexible capability to define shift patterns.
• Automated capability to combine similar reliability entities into “typical” models (e.g. geometry setting stations, etc.).

Go to the Case Study Report: Failure Reporting, Evaluation and Display (FRED) Report.